Hey Raena: Hey Raena - There's more to NetRegistry's naughty nurses
kartar
· 7 months ago
Wow Raena. I stop paying attention for five minutes and you turn into a "femmonazi". :)
This sort of marketing just seems to be cheap and juvenile to me - it was (and still is in some events where women in skimpy clothes are mandatory as "booth babes") typical of 80s/90s IT when you could count the women in the industry on one hand. I'd like to think marketing and the industry has progressed a little.
Why don't people avoid all the stereotypical, mysognistic crap and come up with a something clever, funny and engaging? You know something that will sell product and not result in reputational damage to their organisations. I know it's a struggle for most people in marketing to have an original thought that doesn't involve sexual innuedo and alliteration but they could have tried harder than this.
Donna
· 7 months ago
wow. Great post Raena. Nail. Head. Slam.
"Then again, I know their world enough to know that they would have also endeared themselves more to their own demographic. Theirs means a lot to their aspirations, and little to ours. Ours means little to theirs, nor do their brigade (who will certainly never purchase anything with Netregistry) mean anything to us (we certainly don’t make our business off feminist IT bloggers and Twitterers)."
Hrm.... I wonder if this means i should go move all the domains (and customers domains) away from netregistry, and cease to recommend them to others? Because I "will certainly never purchase anything with netregistry"?
No, I won't, it's too damned inconvenient, and I still reckon netregistry are doing great deals in the Australian industry. (Although, if anyone has a better option for me , I'm now keen to hear about it. My brand loyalty has taken a major head kick over this)
Really, I think this reflects back on Aaron Darc, and how little he actually knows about his industry.
Larry Bloch
· 7 months ago
Hi Donna, thanks for sticking with us - despite you apparent negative feeling about our marketing at CeBIT.
Look, obviously, Netregistry as a company is not in the business of annoying our customers. And I disagree with Aaron (which happens a lot at Netregistry between all sorts of people here - as it should in any healthy community) in that given our size I'm sure we have quite a few "lefty, femmonazi" (not my term) customers, as well as just about every other demographic under the sun - all of whom are wanted by Netregistry as customers. We are a tolerant, inclusive company that really just wants to look after our customers as best we can and do a good job.
However, just wanting to "do a good job" in our business requires communication. And that's where perception takes shape. Occasionally, our contact center staff get it wrong and a customer comes away feeling that they have not got what they wanted or needed. It happens. Doesn't mean the operator wasn't trying to do a good job.
Marketing operates it a similar sphere of communication. We're trying to get a message across so we can "do a good job" of letting our market know how we can help. For CeBIT, we made a creative choice that was undeniably highly successful for both male and female delegates. However cheesy, however unsettling for some it resonated in an unoffensive way for most.
But choices were made, and to get the "cut through" marketers look for, you have to make those choices. I am 100% comfortable that those choices were good ones and that our objectives were exceeded. We didn't engineer the publicity, only a bit of irreverence, fun and mild sexual innuendo. But the publicity was welcome, and it did show how overwhelmingly unoffended the vast majority of people were.
That our marketing raises issues that the public and our customer base find value in debating is quite frankly fantastic. If this contributes to a more harmonious society and enhances the tolerance and mutual appreciation between the sexes - great. if not, at least it in some small way highlighted issues that need addressing (although I won't be taking any credit for that).
As a customer of ours, you Donna are right - always. So whilst I strongly disagree with your sentiments expressed by a non-customer, you are special and I apologize unreservedly to you in particular for any unintended offense we may have caused to you.
Larry Bloch CEO Netregistry
Raena
· 7 months ago
Larry, it's frankly disappointing to me that you'll strongly disagree with this sentiment if it's a non-customer says it, but it's cool if it's someone who's putting cash in your pocket.
Why does it have to be any more or less valid coming from a paying customer? How about your potential customers? Why would that even matter, anyway?
Larry Bloch
· 7 months ago
Raena, I think its clear that you need to take out I strongly disagree with the general sentiment. Period. I never said that from a customer it's cool, just that I'm more sensitive to the opinions of customers.
My customer service ethic is a little akin to how we treat family. If you're a customer of Netregistry, that in and of itself differentiates you from the rest of humanity to me and changes the degree to which I will insist on my perspective. If a family member supports a view, you treat that with more consideration than someone on the street having a disagreement with you. You may be a little more willing to accept that you have caused offense. It's just that, nothing more, nothing less.
if you're a Netregistry customer, my ears, eyes and heart are always open to you. Raena, if you want an apology from me, I urge you to become a Netregistry customer and I'll be happy (er) to oblige ;) . In fact, I'd be happy to host your excellent blog free for a year if you do switch.
Look, I'm being light-hearted. I recognise that some have taken offense to our marketing and that's unfortunate and unintended - I don't want to disparage or deny the very real issues of sexism that underlie those opinions. But really, I think there are far more extreme and interesting things to rail against. I'm frankly quite amazed that we've got this much oxygen on the issue.
But on the whole, my view is that the so called Naughty Nurses and the Netregistry CeBIT stand were pretty tame, clearly not designed to put anyone down, were very effective and widely supported by male and female attendees. And the publicity has been fantastic for Netregistry and has resulted in a deluge of new business from people who connected it - male and female. Just read the blog comments on sites like http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,28348...
Raena
· 7 months ago
It's a kind offer to host my 'excellent blog' for free for a year. (I think you made a typo, it should be 'low-traffic and neglected blog' ;) I'm good for hosting right now, but I appreciate the gesture and you strike me as the kind of guy who'd hold to that if I were to take you up on the offer.
However, I think it's kind of short sighted of you to consider only your customers to be your family, though, or worthy of an apology, because you and your company's sphere of influence goes a lot further than that. I mean, Nett's a perfectly good example -- I'm sure you have readers who aren't also NR customers. Hell, I've been known to pick up a copy from time to time. You're on Twitter (are you also the person posting on @netregistry?) and you have a blog, so I can see you're not just some insular company that only communicates via secret insiders-only newsletter. You took the time to come here and to other blogs and respond.
Thinking of everyone I've worked for, I can't think of a single person who wouldn't want their company to be recognised as a leader -- not just in terms of market share or profitability, but also as a thought leader within the industry and a good example of how to do it the right way. You seem like the kind of guy who'd agree with that.
You used the analogy of having a disagreement with a family member versus some random passer-by on the street, but I think there's room in your example there for your friends or neighbours, as well. Your potential customers are more than just passers-by on the street, surely?
You're right, there are much more astonishing things to get angry about (I'm not really angry, just... not happy). Actually a colleague today said something like "I get what you mean, but I see you don't also have a post decrying the way women are depicted in motor racing."
I don't like that either, but I don't go to motor racing, don't work in motor racing, don't even have anything to do with automotive stuff. I don't even own a car. Consequently I don't notice it when it happens cause it's not in my face. But this is something that happens in my industry, and happens to me personally. It gets oxygen from me and women like me who notice this stuff because it matters to us.
Thanks for coming by and taking the time to write, anyway. If nothing else I have three interesting new blogs to read. :)
Donna
· 7 months ago
Larry - as a woman in the IT industry (who didn't attend CeBIT this year) I heard about the naughty nurses issue, thought it was "puerile" and didn't think much more about it.
But the reaction has been curious, and Raena has articulated the 'bigger issue' very eloquently. As someone who was there, saw it and is a respected professional in the web industry, she is someone you can listen to with respect and know she's likely to have a valid point.
Your apology to me as a customer, but not to critics at large is even more curious.
Debate is healthy. 'Sex Sells' is indeed a tried and true marketing strategy. However dismissing people's unease as irrelevant because it apparently comes from a feminist perspective isn't the right step forward. Some of the response from netregistry staff has been unthinkingly defensive. The media attention has been given you great coverage, so I reckon you're on a winner here. But that misses the point.
We live in a world where a programmer can show up to a user group meeting, and be asked "Oh, are you here with your boyfriend" because she is very obviously a minority. This is why somen women in IT are sensitive to sport locker room norms.
Feminism is actually your friend in this issue. It's a tool to open all our eyes to innate prejudice. Stopping to think about why people might have objected, and understanding their perspective might help bring about real change. If this 'incident' sparks that kind of reflection and real debate, then you haven't just had a winning marketing campaign, you've made a lasting contribution.
I see Jonathan's post below shows he appreciates the bigger picture we need to consider.
Larry Bloch
· 7 months ago
Donna, I couldn't agree with you more. Reasoned, informed opinion is always engaging and welcome.
I think the issues that are being raised are interesting and worthwhile to debate - no objection from me there at all.
The sentiment I disagree with is that the marketing we undertook was in some way misguided or wrong and will damage our brand - I think to take that view fundamentally misunderstands what marketing is.
Remember the United Colors of Benetton advertising from the 80's? Hugely controversial, even more hugely successful.
I recognise and accept there are some we may have annoyed or upset. I'm happy to engage with those opinions. But that discussion takes us away from our marketing to topics that underpin our response to that marketing.
And I have to say that rereading the posts on this site, it is clear the quality of consideration of the matter is quite different to some of the more knee jerk reactions we have seen which is even more welcome.
Justen Freeman
· 7 months ago
Great way to get the message across. Well done NetRegistry keep it up.
Hi Raena. Good post. I love the debate and discussion that is happening and am all for considered debate instead of the vicious knee-jerk ranting that occurred on both sides. I've had some great discussions with people on all sides of the issue as well and it is throwing up some really interesting thoughts and ideas as this event is analysed in greater depth.
Just to clarify though - I never said I did or didn't have a problem with stereotyping or meant to imply that we deliberately set out to stereotype - merely that it was an understandable (if unfortunate) byproduct of putting forward a creative concept in the most immediate and recognisable way. I plan to write more about the stereotyping feedback loop I observed in the last few days and why that shorthand to recognition is still prevalent, the role cultural ideology plays in dictating society and visa versa - and how it cuts both ways gender-wise - in future articles because there's plenty to consider and analyse here.
Raena
· 7 months ago
Thanks Jonathan. I'm looking forward to reading what you come up with. :)
I certainly don't think you *meant* to stereotype, but it happened nonetheless. Explaining it away as an unfortunate side-effect also makes it sound like you think it might have been unavoidable, though, which is probably what I should have written instead of "doesn't have a problem".
Jonathan Crossfield
· 7 months ago
It is actually that question of ' unavoidable' I want to explore. I am sure the answer is more grey than that and there will always be a spread of views just as there will always be a spread of perceptions from both genders and both sides of the debate (cause they are not necessarily the same thing).
Our intention was to present a fun, engaging, cheeky (yes, of course), light-hearted and irreverent face for our brand as we are actively fighting against the cold, generic marketing and images IT has largely become lumbered with. IT doesn't have to be all suits and ties, all zeroes and ones, all jargon and complexity. IT is a tool to achieve non IT goals, nothing more, and we are striving to put the human face and the emotion and the fun back into it.
Gosh, I love marketing almost as much as I love media deconstruction and cultural psychology! ;-)
Raena
· 7 months ago
Oh, I'm sure of it. Context changes a lot about what a particular message means or implies, too. Like I said, those posters or the nurses out of context are OK, but together... not really.
IT generally has a major image problem and I'm glad you want to address that.
Joanna
· 7 months ago
I saw the nurses at CeBIT and twittered about it, but I didn't take the time to find out what booth they were from, but now I wish I had. NetRegistry's response makes me furious, as a feminist, as a twitterer, and also just as a person. They won't be getting my business, that's for sure.
Aaron Darc
· 7 months ago
Raena,
I don't think you're an extremist feminazi, etc, as such, no (I never used the term Feminazi). But what you're missing here is that you have taken my comments out of context (and I think that's unfair)... perhaps because by the time you reached my piece, your mind was already pretty much made up. But I do hope your readers bother to read the piece, without basing their conclusions off your quotes.
My reference to "hardcore" feminists is in regards to those extreme activists and figures who initially WROTE about it (and started the whole "controversy") - as opposed to those who joined in the debate, in their own time, in any way. And yes, those three initial writers/twitterers are "hardcore feminists" - that's not a derogatory comment, it's simply a descriptive. Feminism has an ideological spectrum. I'm a feminist - I'm known for my feminist writings! That's the irony you're missing here. When I'm not working for NR, I hang out with (mostly academic) feminists. Read through the letters section of my site - I have a 90% female readership, all feminists. But they had no problem with any of the work I'd done. I have written (and spoken on radio) in regards to a number of feminist issues (including the NRL), I made my name online for a mostly feminist deconstruction of Big Brother (and was published by SMH for it). I'm a feminist! I dwell on the feminist side of the ideological spectrum. But that doesn't mean I don't disagree with others who are on that extreme - on the harder ("extreme") end of it. I do, this time!!
And if you had quoted me properly, you would have bothered to mention that before the quote you give, I say:
"Since feminist ideology and culture is divided amongst itself, I'd like to point out that it was by no means a battle between our campaign and some all-encompassing voice against sexism - in fact, it was just a few (but a few who knew how to work their way into a press coverage many would ultimately blame myself and the rest of the team for creating). Still, bet you never thought you'd come here to see me write an article defending my work against angry feminists! But such is the case - the following article will sit bizarrely beside ones such as my swipe at NRL culture , or all the countless others I have written against the cultural manifestations of patriarchal exploitation. This is the story of the "Naughty Netregistry Nurses" (as dubbed by press). Truth be told, mind you, they weren't anywhere near as naughty as they were made out to be. ....
Women have every right to be angry (in this society) - I've said nothing but this, for the past few years of my personal online presence - and I'm familiar with the pitfalls of that anger (anger in general is, at the end of the day, laid with pitfalls) when going about communicating what is, at its core, a valid problem. I'm less sympathetic, I must say, to my fellow social commentators who often choose targets on the basis of their opportunity to give them press coverage of any sort (or a microphone on Twitter, perhaps - how very now), at the expense of adequately analysing that target. For three days, the company I work for and I, Netregistry, became a target, thanks to a campaign of mine."
But you leave that out.
You also forget to mention that I bother to criticise those men, etc, on forum boards who have attacked the feminists attacking this (I call them "hardcore misogynists" in the article).
The truth is, either side of the extreme ends of this dichotomy, is the majority of people. MOST people are moderate. And the reality of marketing is that it is about MOST. That's nothing to do with NR - that's every single product on the face of the Earth. Unless the product exclusively targets a small niche demo, etc, then that is the case (but even then, that's your "most" - you'll always deliberate create material that pleases the majority). So my point - that you again misrepresented - is that ironically, even though the media loves putting forward these things as "battles", and that's how those enraged one way or the other happily buy into them, there's no winner or loser here. Because yes, the feminist writers who had such a strong reaction to it are only going to be further cheered on by their readership and (my other point) got exactly the press attention they want. Conversely, most NR customers had no problem with it, and more have been drawn to the company than repelled. And even though that may also be because the IT and SME world is predominantly male, many of those customers who enjoyed it are women, yes, because - even though you might not like this reality - the majority of women do not hold such extreme views. And even some who are more extreme actually liked it (gasp!!) because they got the irony of the campaign (they're actually sending up the absurdity - and yes, ludicrous sexuality - of modern medical and pharmaceutical industry).
So while I can totally understand your concern about the way women are treated in media, etc, please don't take my analysis of MARKETING facts, and then project some personal ideology of mine or NR onto them! That's really not what those sections of my article are about.
But look, I am sincerely frustrated by all this in one aspect - that it means I am here arguing with women like yourself - because I am actually on the same team, at the end of the day! But you got this one wrong, I'm afraid. And I don't say that to you as Aaron Darc of NR - I say that to you as a fellow writer and thinker against the Patriarch.
Raena
· 7 months ago
Aaron, I read all of your post, and I'm sorry you think I didn't read it properly or couldn't be "bothered", but I don't feel the need to paste a five hundred word excerpt from your post when people are perfectly able to click the link and read it for themselves. In fact, you'll note I said your post was reasonably fine, except for the part I quoted.
Your comment (and the other NR folks in here come to think) reads as if you think I'm saying that you did this deliberately. I'm not saying that at all; not once did I say anything like that. In fact I even say a couple of times that I think it's unintentional. It sounds as though you feel quite put out by the fact that some people have chosen to characterise it as a deliberate act on your part. I don't think that's the case at all. I'm sorry if you think I meant that.
My problem with what you wrote there was twofold. The first problem is that you're tarring everyone who doesn't like that you did with the same brush by saying "our detractors" and "extremism" in, more or less, the same breath. If that's not what you meant, then fine, but I'm sure you can see how it reads that way. And yeah there were a few people who were getting quite worked up and being extremely shrill, but equally there were others (even in the cesspit that is Twitter) who were being quite moderate. It's not accurate to say that *everyone* who had something to say about it was being a dick.
I noticed you mentioned that you're reasonably new to that end of the market so maybe the idea hasn't come up for you before, but the way women are portrayed isn't always positive (even when it's not intended), and it's a very real and legitimate problem for women in the industry. It's not extremism, not at all.
The second problem is the assumption that we 'extremists' have nothing to do with your market. I mean, look at Donna, above, who *is* a customer and *does* agree with me. And I'm sure you know from reading above that I'm certainly not a paying customer, but I'm absolutely in your demographic -- to dismiss the concerns of people like us as 'haha, not my problem' is shortsighted and frankly pretty naive.
Again, if we're not the kind of people you meant, then fine. But it didn't read this way at all.
Thanks for stopping by.
Aaron Darc
· 7 months ago
Look, I think the twain won't ever meet here, at the end of the day! Lol So we could go on and on and on.... however...
I'm not saying you didn't bother to read it, but I think when people bring their agendas to something, they're not always joining the dots properly. And you know as well as I do that most people will NOT bother clicking the link, so their impression of my article rests with how you choose to present it. You took a few sentences and placed them out of context, yes. You used lines of mine to suggest that I come from the "opposing team" (so to speak) who just sees all feminists as "extremists" - when, as the part of my article I did paste above shows, is far, far from the case. You also suggest that I'm someone who is oblivious to gender issues, and that is far, far from the case (as my article also makes clear - as do my other work, which the article then links to within the article). I do concede that you mentioned that the rest of it "didn't bother you". But shucks! What good is that when you don't even mention what that is (as a counter-action to what you found objectionable) and then you seem to misunderstand what I'm saying in the parts you present. I find that misleading analysis, I have every right to point out parts that may contradict how you're presenting it as.
The irony is that I think most of the women who reacted so angrily to this are themselves guilty of lumping everyone together, because they implicitly (or sometimes, more directly!) suggest that anyone who does not agree with their particular kind of feminist view can not be a feminist or is a sexist, and I totally reject that (as do many feminists on the topic of our stand). To the thousands of people who read my work (I do national radio, and my former website had over 80,000 hits a month - this current one of mine gets around 20,000) the suggestion that I am a suitable target for this debate is just ludicrous. And I think some have now realised that (would have been nice to have thought about things more before some of those people were so happy to fire off for media), so now it's a backtracking "but it wasn't intentional, we admit that". But intention has everything to do with it, it's the fundamental premise of communication.
What you're really talking about when you speak of "intention" is really subjective perception (totally different thing), and what I'm saying in my article is simply that yours is the minority (it's not that we don't give a shit about you, it's that many more people responded positively to the campaign than negatively). That's a fact. The campaign was a success. Don't get me wrong, I sympathise with you - I'm a minority, too - but it's still a fact. And that's not because they're all male chauvinists who enjoyed it, it's because even most of the women aren't so extreme in their reaction to what is and isn't "sexism". people actually took from it exactly what we "intended". This campaign is not objectively sexist - it's sexist to a small group of people, based very much on what governs their perception. And as long as some of those points are based on such extremities, the majority of people (including women!!) will react completely opposite to how you want them to, and that may even negatively impact your cause in future (if it's truly to make changes, and not just revel in its own collectivism). You must make your arguments carefully, or you will try to persuade people with an argument they can't relate to.
Most people think that you reading into the pregnant woman's head not being in that shot is just ridiculous projection on your part. I'm one of them. That is just a standard commercial pregnancy shot from medical advertising. It's not saying "This is all you're worth", it's saying "This is about pregnancy which is about - gasp - having a baby inside your stomach"!!! I mean, really. How many expecting mothers - who that kind of material is aimed at - do you think storm out of their doctor's office, outraged, because there's a shot of a pregnant woman on her leaflet that reduces her identity by not showing her face?!?!? Not many. 99.99999999999% of women would never find that remotely offensive. I think many women would find it comforting that it's portrayed at all (as so many critics have pointed out, usually women are not even bothered relevant enough to include beyond being a sex object - we did). You clearly see motherhood as being a symbol of the patriarchal view that a woman's role is to pop out babies. But don't let that muddy your perception of pregnancy or motherhood to such a point where you project upon an image like that. Motherhood should be a choice, but it's a beautiful thing that can very much exist outside of your rejection of sexist views on women's roles. Many women would be offended by your perception of that image - ironically, more than men would be. But I think you were looking for the reaction, by then. You said you had no problem when you saw the stand (before you got pumped up by the feminist reactions you read) - but that image was a huge poster (hung twice) at that stand, and you didn't seem to find it so confronting or objectionable.
And look, I know that the male dominance in the IT world must make it extremely uncomfortable for the women involved in it, at times. I know there would be legitimate cases (those REAL "booth babes" at the show made me ill). How do you think I feel? I remember my first day at NR - I walked in and thought "Oh, that's right - digital companies are full of men!" I was nervous, I was worried, I actually tried to tone myself down!! And in the end, I realised I was wrong. I was just bringing my fears - the resonance of my own unfortunate experiences of collective male mentality - and projecting them all over them. If someone had a bad morning and seemed grumpy, I would worry they had a problem with me. And I eventually realised I was wrong. And that's a good thing. Don't get so hung up on your hang ups, that you can't also see cases where things are not examples of what you hate or fear in life. I wish many of the critics of this campaign could learn the same lesson.
Throughout all this, everyone from NR (and we're all different, as Larry has pointed out - how refreshing that a CEO puts that forward!) has continuously made the effort to engage this debate - even on blogs like this one (where we're now well and truly away from the commercial world of media, etc, which other companies would see as having no relevancy to a national demo who are in the hundreds of thousands). I think that shows they very much do care about this issue, or they'd be happy to let it go and enjoy the benefits of the publicity. Donna probably wouldn't find that in many other IT companies, whether they advertised with nurses or not.
Raena
· 7 months ago
Hey, you've written a lot here and I only have so much time in my head for this issue, so I'll try and break it up with some quotes -- which, again, I'm not doing to take it out of context, just to show you what specific issues I want to try to respond to here.
I'm not saying you didn't bother to read it, but I think when people bring their agendas to something, they're not always joining the dots properly. And you know as well as I do that most people will NOT bother clicking the link, so their impression of my article rests with how you choose to present it.
Sure. I'd do it if I were writing about something on SitePoint, for example, because a lot of people read that and not all of them are going to go ahead and do that (I don't think I'd post about *this* issue there, jsut speaking generally). But over here with my pitifully small readership, yeah, I had a case of the slacks. I'd like to think the five or six people who do read my blog would take the time to do that, but it's true that I should have done it here anyway, because it's the right thing to do.
And I did say that most of it was fine, except for characterising some *pretty moderate women* as hardcore feminists. I'm sure I could have said so louder and I'm sorry that I didn't make that clearer. I'll go and edit the post if you like to indicate this better.
You used lines of mine to suggest that I come from the "opposing team" (so to speak) who just sees all feminists as "extremists" - when, as the part of my article I did paste above shows, is far, far from the case.
I wasn't trying to cast it as the opposing team at all, as I pointed out. Clearly I didn't do a very good job of that. I'm *trying* to say that you have a misguided opinion of what constitues extremism, and what constitutes people in your market.
I find that misleading analysis, I have every right to point out parts that may contradict how you're presenting it as.
Indeed you do. I'm sorry you feel that I tried to mislead. I'd really like to believe that people would go and read it for themselves, and I wouldn't feel comfortable dumping a bunch of your text onto my blog here anyway.
Again, though, this was the only point I took umbrage with and felt like commenting on. Overall it's a really good post. If anything I actually felt better having read about the process you went through in developing the idea, not to mention the fact that you'd taken the time to write about it at all.
And that's not because they're all male chauvinists who enjoyed it, it's because even most of the women aren't so extreme in their reaction to what is and isn't "sexism".
You keep using these loaded words, 'sexism' (I never used that term, did you notice?) and 'extremist/extreme/extremism'. If you don't agree that they're loaded I'm sure you can at least see how they're quite strong -- people don't usually say sexist outside of the context of suggesting that the person is being wilfully sexist, and people don't say extremee when they mean 'not to my liking' -- extremist means WAY left field.
I don't think I can put it any clearer: it's my deeply held belief that it is not extremism to say that women are depicted poorly in IT; it's a fact that is quite noticeable to many people and affects many more.
Most people think that you reading into the pregnant woman's head not being in that shot is just ridiculous projection on your part. I'm one of them. That is just a standard commercial pregnancy shot from medical advertising. It's not saying "This is all you're worth", it's saying "This is about pregnancy which is about - gasp - having a baby inside your stomach"!!! I mean, really.
It's hardly a new idea to talk about reducing women to body parts. Usually it happens with the good old tits and arse, but I'm not sure why a pregnant belly ought to be any different. And yeah, 99.999-infinity% of people don't notice or care about that stuff in advertising, the Gruen Transfer's ratings notwithstanding, but that doesn't mean it's not there, or that one is not entitled to think about it. 99.999% of people don't think about astrophysics either.
Fire up your favourite search engine and search for the phrase body chopping. There's also a video that touchces on the idea and explains it better than I can. I'm sure you'll still think it's silly, but perhaps it'll show you I'm not just pulling the idea out of thin air. (Skip ahead to about 8:20 for the stuff about dismemberment.)
Many women would be offended by your perception of that image - ironically, more than men would be. But I think you were looking for the reaction, by then.
Please don't invalidate my views by characterising it as attention-seeking. It's a pretty cheap shot.
And believe me, if I just wanted to get a reaction, there are easier ways -- like having a little squeal about it on twitter, as an example, or being quite a lot more acid-tongued. if I were really very angry about this, believe me, that would be extremely clear.
You said you had no problem when you saw the stand (before you got pumped up by the feminist reactions you read) - but that image was a huge poster (hung twice) at that stand, and you didn't seem to find it so confronting or objectionable.
Actually, I did. As I said:
But I’d visited the booth on Tuesday, and spoke to one of the male nurse dudes, and I’ll tell you I honestly did have a sense of feeling a bit icked out at the booth.
At the booth. I had a feeling of being icked out at the booth. I was uncomfortable with it.
I only wrote about it after the fact because I found it interesting that it had been discussed at all (not "pumped up", as you put it), and for whatever reason occurred to me at the time I felt compelled to share what i felt. If anything, I tend to *undervalue* my gut instinct about things like this; I was kind of surprised anyone else had bothered to raise it at all.
And look, I know that the male dominance in the IT world must make it extremely uncomfortable for the women involved in it, at times. I know there would be legitimate cases (those REAL "booth babes" at the show made me ill).
Yeah. I only saw the red pants girls in passing, and I didn't feel especially compelled to take note of who it was.
I'll agree it's a bit rude for the chatterboxes to only discuss yours and not the others. If you know who the owners of that booth were, feel free to share and I'll give you my solemn promise that I will write them a pissy email.
It's also entirely possible that yours is the tallest poppy; there were a lot of low or no-profile exhibitors there.
I guess what I'm trying to show is that even low-level stuff like this contributes to the problem. It's nowhere near as bad as putting 'kiss' on some chick's lycra-clad arse.
Don't get so hung up on your hang ups, that you can't also see cases where things are not examples of what you hate or fear in life.
I get what you *meant* to do, which was to be cheeky and funny. I still feel that this campaign is an example of unconsciously creating an experience that isn't welcoming to women. I *don't* think this campaign, or even your post, is an example of overt and deliberate hostility. I'm not even super-furious about what happened, just a bit disappointed.
Look I'm sure you're heartily sick of reading about it and I have to go to bed. But I do think it's good thing that you and the others took the time to respond to me and others. I'm especially pleased to see you chose to do this as good old-fashioned comments as distinct from a 140-character ten-second brainfart. Thankyou for visiting and responding, I really mean it.
Stephen Michael Kellat
· 7 months ago
This would look picayune in Las Vegas. Then again, I live here in the Las Vegas Valley. What would I know?
Raena, thank you for a great post. I am pleased to see Larry Bloch also showing up in the comments here. This sort of discourse online is harder to find here in the US.
Raena
· 7 months ago
Stephen, it doesn't matter whether it's done worse elsewhere. (It was even done worse right there at CeBit.) It still doesn't sit right with me.
Stephen Michael Kellat
· 7 months ago
I know. Location doesn't matter. I agree with you that it doesn't sit right.
Larry Bloch
· 7 months ago
Hi Raena, I wanted to put a question to you.
It's curious to me how many who have take issue with our marketing communicate their opinions. In your piece, you said
"Finally we have the cheesy old bimbo-and-sugar daddy trope—whether she’s a sugar babe or a trophy wife, this is an image of a woman as a sexual accessory, and daddy here looks extremely pleased with the way his bit of fluff is fondling his big red tie there."
Surely this sort of language perpetuates the stereotype as much as the image may appear to. For all we know, this could be a picture of a self-made millionaire who met an old homeless man doing charity work at a soup kitchen and fell in love. Sure, he's smiling.
My point being that calling professional working people "booth babes", "bimbo's", "sugar babes' and "trophy wives" whether accurate or not is as damagingly stereotyping as what is being complained about.
For what it's worth, I was pretty offended that our "nurses" were labelled "booth babes" - it was a wrong categorisation and hardly a show of support for two very intelligent young students who were supposedly being exploited. Isn't calling them "bimbo's" a little like implying a sexual assault victim is partly to blame?
Raena
· 7 months ago
That's a good thing to mention about language.
You'll note I tried to avoid using the words "booth babe" in my post to describe the nurses; it's certainly loaded. I also chose not to use the word 'sexist'; it's a word that's ordinarily used with an accusatory tone and usually implies a deliberate decision, and I don't by any means want to imply that NetRegistry did it deliberately.
It obviously didn't work very well because you, Jonathan and Aaron have all come back firing with comments that you didn't mean it and you meant it to be lighthearted. I get the message. I can see that, really I can. I'm just trying to point out how there are unintended consequences of using certain symbols.
Confession time: I did actually use the words 'booth babes' to tell a colleague that I'd seen them while wandering past (in fact, it was probably something along the lines of "Hey, there are totally booth babes over there!") which I accept is unfair, and with the benefit of taking the time to think about it I'm quite sorry I said so.
On the other hand, 'booth babes' itself is a concise shorthand to describe chicks at a booth who are there to stand out, as it were. We all find ourselves hobbled by preconceptions; for my part, I've been to enough events where there are chicks 'on display' whose only function is to hand you a flyer and pout for the camera. It's usually the right assumption to make. In your case it was not. Don't get me wrong, that's a good thing.
Thinking of that photo, sure, the girl on his lap *might* be a self-made millionaire, in much the same way as the pregnant woman *might* be the Prime Minister. But are these interpretations really the first thing that would come to mind to you? Really *really?* Marketing shorthand, remember.
That's not to mention the fact that the man is the one who's the focus of that photo -- he's facing the camera, he's the one wearing the symbols of success in business (suit, cigar) and she's the one who's 'slipped in to something more comfortable.'
I don't mean to get all Art Interpretation 101 or anything, but given that so much of this conversation revolves around stereotypes and marketing, it's hardly irrelevant to talk about it.
And yeah, I used those words to describe *the trope this image suggests* -- words that match the stereotype behind the image. Describing a concept depicted in a photo, especially one that is likely a staged stock photograph, is very different to me describing a real person. It'd be more accurate if I'd posted a picture of your nurses and said "Wahey, check out these bits of fluff."
And I'm sorry, but describing a *symbol* in a *staged* photo (again, not a real person) is miles away from accusing a real live sexual assault victim of being partially to blame. It's practically nothing like it, in fact.
Larry Bloch
· 7 months ago
Can we describe stereotypes adequately without using stereotypical language?
Sure, describing staged photo's requires less diplomacy than talking about real people - I agree. And I'm not kidding myself, the dude is a captain of industry and the lady is clearly intended to be exactly what she is portrayed as.
I suppose I'm uncomfortable with an argument that says "don't treat women as sexual accessories" at the same time as calling them bimbo's and fluff. The language is degrading and I would think counter productive to the entire argument, which is that all people should be held in equal esteem, without preconceptions as to their status, role or respectability.
This is partly what makes some women say things like "you need toughen up, girls", because the language itself perpetuates a victim mentality that many women and men reject.
And I was wrong to use your quote as an example - I wasn't pointing to you specifically - or anyone for that matter.
In the end, I hired three your girls to do a job for my company - which they did admirably. And I know I don't really need to protect them because they had a ball and totally enjoyed themselves, but in the wash up I take exception to anyone treating any of my employees with that sort of disrespect indicated by the demeaning language used. And no, I don't believe the role we provided for them "asked for it". That is my reference to an assault victim.
I think we all want to live in that post-modern world where these suspicions of underlying motivations and unconscious culpability are seen for what they are - the human condition where no insult is intended and none is taken because we all understand where it comes from and are comfortable with it, not threatened by it.
Feminism will need to come to terms with that post modern world, because more and more people already inhabit it. Wars that are won are mostly not won unambiguously, but what is unambiguous is that feminism has won women the right to equality they did not previously enjoy. Certainly not universally, certainly not accepted by all, but nonetheless, the right to equality is now undeniable. There may be skirmishes left, but it is an art to know when to stop fighting because the war is won. You don't want to empower the reactionaries.
Simon Pascal Klein
· 7 months ago
I think you’ve summed up the arguments of those who apposed Net Registry’s marketing campaign nicely. It really just comes down to socialisation in that these actions and the media (the brochures) propagate a heteronormative hegemonic masculine view that objectifies the subject (in this case women) to conform to the qualities of attraction as prized by that masculinity. It has negative implications not just to women but also to men in that it continues to proliferate these gender relations and thus the potential harm they do.
Simon Pascal Klein
· 7 months ago
I should expand I don’t want to shovel blame onto anyone, and also want to note that the arguments mentioned in the opening line in my last comment reflect Raena’s note of them in her entry—I obviously haven’t seen all of the comments made by those who objected to the campaign. (:
Raena
· 7 months ago
Aw, thanks for that. :)
I think it's far too easy to underestimate the socialising power of marketing material. It's absolutely true that the vastest majority of people wouldn't look at a particular image and say that they consciously get a message of depersonalisation or whathaveyou from it (see above with Aaron).
The power of suggestion from repeated daily exposure means it doesn't need to be spelt out in black and white.
Gary Barber
· 7 months ago
First off I am a NetRegistry customer. Second I didn't attend CeBIT. All the information I have on this marketing campaign and the relevant incidence are second hand.
Sometimes you know you get an idea, especially as a designer that is really well - cool. You are convinced that it is totally perfect. You roll out the idea from a mere spark into a complete campaign, branding or project. The idea is so good, you get all your team mates on side too. But at no time do you sit back and look at the bigger picture - the impact that your finer details of your mega idea will have overall. The ethical business response.
You know it is good to have a little bit of an external review or roll ideas post a few peers not within the team. This type of review process can often tweak an idea and stop any embarrassing PR instances,; which can be enhanced even more by an aggressive defensive reaction when things go wrong.
Now I'm not saying NetRegistry didn't do this. But you do wonder.
Mind you I will say at least people will have name NetRegistry on their lips for a little while at least. So maybe it did work after all.
Larry Bloch
· 7 months ago
Hi Gary,
Firtly, it totally worked. Secondly, I think most people miss the point - thisis not social commentary, it's marketing. You identify a demographic target and you prepare material that connects with that target.
If we designed a marketing campaign for the target audience that frequents this forum and those like it, it would be witty, intelligent and different to what we did. It would also be considered completely weird by the majority of our audience, who are actually pretty happy with a bit of nudge nudge wink wink.
That's what so many "anti" posters miss. This is not about trying to ensure our material strikes a complete gender unbiased note, its about marketing, which is about cut through, humour, connection, engagement and communication. All that we did fantastically well. Couldn't be happier.
We weren't trying to please everyone, and probably fair to say we weren't trying to please the good people reading this blog, b y and large. Not should we have - there are too many niche perspectives to be able to successfully execute a marketing strategy and please everyone. That way leads pretty directly to boring and unsuccessful.
If you want to critique our marketing, then do so as a marketer, not a gender war warrior. Because to a marketer, the gender war warrior's perspective is irrelevant and marginalised.
I have to say, that if anyone was exploited in all this, it is the people who came out with predictable posts about sexism etc. That created the publicity that took our CeBIT stand from mildly entertaining to cult status. So a bit thank you to all of you.
Lastly, people have spoken of harm to women (and men), of damage and negative implications. That's really all just rubbish - there is no more harm than a Jacaranda tree causes to a person who doesn't like purple. It just raises interesting issues to debate for those of us who like to do so.
Jacinta Richardson
· 7 months ago
You identify a demographic target and you prepare material that connects with that target.
This is, unfortunately, the problem. 80+% or so of your overall targeted demographic are men ages 25 and up (although it's probably more like 95+% at events like this). If you only care about reaching your targeted demographic, then of course gorgeous young ladies in nurse costumes will be perfect.
The other, smaller, proportion of your targeted demographic is easily overlooked; because you target for the majority. However, it includes women who are spending a lot of time and effort trying to get more women into the industry, and who have thus become very aware of how marketing (unintentionally or otherwise) helps keep the current status quo. These women must make noise about the how your clever marketing idea makes it harder to get women into the industry because if they don't, how can it change?
When a respectable vendor uses the presence of women as merely a draw-card to get attendees to look at their display; the message you give about women in the industry isn't a positive one. If you'd skipped on the whole nurses outfits and instead put all your booth attendants in scrubs, gave them doctor name tags and had them all call each other doctor; then many of the problems that have been raised would have been averted. "But!" you might say, "Less people would have stopped by". It's probably true, and demonstrates my point.
Promoting the idea that a great deal more than 5% of your booth visitors will be female doesn't require boring marketing, it just requires more careful thought. Even if this year it is only 5%, at least you won't have made it harder on us who want to increase it to 6% next year.
Larry Bloch
· 7 months ago
Jacinta, you need to remember as well that your view may not be the majority view of women. So even using your numbers, if only 5% of delegates are women, and about 5% of those have a negative reaction (yes, it IS as low as that - review the comments on http://www.news.com.au/comments/0,23600,2547937... and on http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/software/soa/CeBIT...), what you are asking is a lot to pander to a very very small minority.
We had many women visit our stand and compliment us on it. That's what you miss in all this, your fears that our marketing drives women away is not supported by the facts.
Again, I make the point that many of YOUR target demographic have moved on from gender war and the subtle nuances of sexist representation. They see it, they understand it and they're OK with it - they don't find it threatening.
So readers, Netregistry's bottom line is that the issues raised are interesting to debate and certainly worthwhile to understand, but are in my view at best marginal - and therefore difficult and counter productive to accommodate.
Our stand was on the other hand widely enjoyed and supported. I'd do it the same way again.
Donna
· 7 months ago
Yep - the campaign was a roaring success. Larry, Aaron and John - Did you even dream it would be this good?
After reading more about the detail of Aaron's concept, I'd venture to say this campaign verged on brilliance. It targeted the market with the precision of a laser guided military sniper rifle.
The NetRegisty CeBIT booth campaign * cut through. * had a very human quality in a sea of dull techno-comm-PR * had meaningful and clever context that twisted established IT PR norms * wasn't the worst offender at CeBIT
It's a real shame the supporting artillery created such collateral damage.
Where your PR has gone off the rails is in your response to criticism. Not the campaign itself.
Despite the brilliance the campaign was icky. I'll take Raena's word for that. Having seen it herself, and presented quite excellent analysis of it (drawing on some well established methods of gender critique) I trust her judgment. But it was quite perfect for CeBIT. Having helped organise stands for CeBIT in the past I rejected suggestions we should have pretty young things wearing spandex on the stand.
The campaign was creative and innovative, but ultimately failed to be accountable for its message. Gary Barber's question about running the concept by someone outside the team is a good one. I'd be interested in Karen Lim-Sam's perspective on the furore. Given she acted to 'tone down' the nurse costumes by having the actors wear long sleeves and leggings beneath their outfits.
So, the campaign was successful. It has also given prominence to the real problems women face in the IT and Telecomms industry. I choose to see the glass is half full.
What's sad here is that the NR team has responded so defensively to legitimate criticism. What's sadder still is the fact that this campaign hit its market precisely because that market is still so overwhelmingly dominated by men. That is the real issue here.
Larry - Please don't make NetRegistry as tawdry as GoDaddy.
You have a golden opportunity here to expose the real problem in our industry, and perhaps take steps to address it. I'd suggest taking a leaf out of Google's books and start actively redressing the imbalance. Perhaps consider sponsoring a round of Girl Geek Dinners? Help promote women in the industry and encourage them to act as role models for the future. And be even more creative about how you portray people in your marketing materials.
Many good points in your post. I don't think there's any chance NR will become as tawdry as GoDaddy.
I unfortunately have to go back to my much more mundane and boring job, but will revisit this page and read what's here.
It's been a blast!
Wendy
· 7 months ago
Where your PR has gone off the rails is in your response to criticism. Not the campaign itself.
Hear, hear! Spot on.
After reading Aaron’s blog entry, I love the original two ideas for the campaign (the first two poster drafts, with the droopy server and the "need a boost?"). They’re cute.
Some of the final products took the idea and ran with it a little further than I personally like, especially as a multimedia graduate who had recurring motifs, gaze, and all that burned into their consciousness since first year Uni. The I See What You Did There effect haunts me on a regular basis (but I wouldn’t have it any other way).
I was working hard during CeBIT and didn't get a chance to really see this stuff. Had I seen it, it would have been a “well, you get that” mental shrug – not to my taste, but whatever. Not fussed.
Reading the NR comments on this blog left me cold, however. (Maybe I should have printed them out on thicker paper).
It’s great to see their leaders seeking out commentary on the issue and responding – good move. It’s just a shame that their responses were lacking an editing process.
What would have actually endeared me to their brand would have been an honest, simple “Whoops, no harm implied, sorry it bothered a few people!" Flickr's marketing team do this well – straightforward, punchy and genuine dialogue. If Valve had done something like this, I think their response would have been equally simple, clear, and most likely endearingly silly, being Valve. Their recent blog posts about the TF2 Spy leak, for example, are nicely done ;) Helps that they have Jay Pinkerton as their writer, of course.
Instead they come off sounding... kinda like the competition they were trying to distinguish themselves from, to me. Tis a shame.
Donna's advice is excellent, otoh.
Gary Barber
· 7 months ago
Larry you are so far off base considering that I'm a gender war warrior. Its this type of generalisation that makes me sick. You know fuck all about me. We have never met. You have No idea where I stand on a lot of issues. Do not generalise.
I just put forward a scenario, but as expected in an immature fashion you went for the usual PR defensive position.
I didn't say anyone was exploited. I was just looked at you marketing from a distance. Frankly the entire point was to get people to engage with your staff, then they would do the rest. In that respect I have no idea if it worked. Only you know the conversion ratio. If your staff are good it would have been a excellent result.
I suppose we can always trot out the "its just business" screw the moral aspects etc. Well sadly ALL business is personal....
Larry Bloch
· 7 months ago
That comment wasn't directed at you specifically - it was more of a general comment - as in "If one wants to critique our..." instead of "If you..."
My mistake in loose usage personal pronouns. So my apologies for calling you a "gender war warrier". My point was a general one, but I can see how my language made it seem I was attacking you. Sorry.
All Comments
This sort of marketing just seems to be cheap and juvenile to me - it was (and still is in some events where women in skimpy clothes are mandatory as "booth babes") typical of 80s/90s IT when you could count the women in the industry on one hand. I'd like to think marketing and the industry has progressed a little.
Why don't people avoid all the stereotypical, mysognistic crap and come up with a something clever, funny and engaging? You know something that will sell product and not result in reputational damage to their organisations. I know it's a struggle for most people in marketing to have an original thought that doesn't involve sexual innuedo and alliteration but they could have tried harder than this.
"Then again, I know their world enough to know that they would have also endeared themselves more to their own demographic. Theirs means a lot to their aspirations, and little to ours. Ours means little to theirs, nor do their brigade (who will certainly never purchase anything with Netregistry) mean anything to us (we certainly don’t make our business off feminist IT bloggers and Twitterers)."
Hrm.... I wonder if this means i should go move all the domains (and customers domains) away from netregistry, and cease to recommend them to others? Because I "will certainly never purchase anything with netregistry"?
No, I won't, it's too damned inconvenient, and I still reckon netregistry are doing great deals in the Australian industry. (Although, if anyone has a better option for me , I'm now keen to hear about it. My brand loyalty has taken a major head kick over this)
Really, I think this reflects back on Aaron Darc, and how little he actually knows about his industry.
Look, obviously, Netregistry as a company is not in the business of annoying our customers. And I disagree with Aaron (which happens a lot at Netregistry between all sorts of people here - as it should in any healthy community) in that given our size I'm sure we have quite a few "lefty, femmonazi" (not my term) customers, as well as just about every other demographic under the sun - all of whom are wanted by Netregistry as customers. We are a tolerant, inclusive company that really just wants to look after our customers as best we can and do a good job.
However, just wanting to "do a good job" in our business requires communication. And that's where perception takes shape. Occasionally, our contact center staff get it wrong and a customer comes away feeling that they have not got what they wanted or needed. It happens. Doesn't mean the operator wasn't trying to do a good job.
Marketing operates it a similar sphere of communication. We're trying to get a message across so we can "do a good job" of letting our market know how we can help. For CeBIT, we made a creative choice that was undeniably highly successful for both male and female delegates. However cheesy, however unsettling for some it resonated in an unoffensive way for most.
But choices were made, and to get the "cut through" marketers look for, you have to make those choices. I am 100% comfortable that those choices were good ones and that our objectives were exceeded. We didn't engineer the publicity, only a bit of irreverence, fun and mild sexual innuendo. But the publicity was welcome, and it did show how overwhelmingly unoffended the vast majority of people were.
That our marketing raises issues that the public and our customer base find value in debating is quite frankly fantastic. If this contributes to a more harmonious society and enhances the tolerance and mutual appreciation between the sexes - great. if not, at least it in some small way highlighted issues that need addressing (although I won't be taking any credit for that).
As a customer of ours, you Donna are right - always. So whilst I strongly disagree with your sentiments expressed by a non-customer, you are special and I apologize unreservedly to you in particular for any unintended offense we may have caused to you.
Larry Bloch
CEO
Netregistry
Why does it have to be any more or less valid coming from a paying customer? How about your potential customers? Why would that even matter, anyway?
My customer service ethic is a little akin to how we treat family. If you're a customer of Netregistry, that in and of itself differentiates you from the rest of humanity to me and changes the degree to which I will insist on my perspective. If a family member supports a view, you treat that with more consideration than someone on the street having a disagreement with you. You may be a little more willing to accept that you have caused offense. It's just that, nothing more, nothing less.
if you're a Netregistry customer, my ears, eyes and heart are always open to you. Raena, if you want an apology from me, I urge you to become a Netregistry customer and I'll be happy (er) to oblige ;) . In fact, I'd be happy to host your excellent blog free for a year if you do switch.
Look, I'm being light-hearted. I recognise that some have taken offense to our marketing and that's unfortunate and unintended - I don't want to disparage or deny the very real issues of sexism that underlie those opinions. But really, I think there are far more extreme and interesting things to rail against. I'm frankly quite amazed that we've got this much oxygen on the issue.
But on the whole, my view is that the so called Naughty Nurses and the Netregistry CeBIT stand were pretty tame, clearly not designed to put anyone down, were very effective and widely supported by male and female attendees. And the publicity has been fantastic for Netregistry and has resulted in a deluge of new business from people who connected it - male and female. Just read the blog comments on sites like http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,28348...
However, I think it's kind of short sighted of you to consider only your customers to be your family, though, or worthy of an apology, because you and your company's sphere of influence goes a lot further than that. I mean, Nett's a perfectly good example -- I'm sure you have readers who aren't also NR customers. Hell, I've been known to pick up a copy from time to time. You're on Twitter (are you also the person posting on @netregistry?) and you have a blog, so I can see you're not just some insular company that only communicates via secret insiders-only newsletter. You took the time to come here and to other blogs and respond.
Thinking of everyone I've worked for, I can't think of a single person who wouldn't want their company to be recognised as a leader -- not just in terms of market share or profitability, but also as a thought leader within the industry and a good example of how to do it the right way. You seem like the kind of guy who'd agree with that.
You used the analogy of having a disagreement with a family member versus some random passer-by on the street, but I think there's room in your example there for your friends or neighbours, as well. Your potential customers are more than just passers-by on the street, surely?
You're right, there are much more astonishing things to get angry about (I'm not really angry, just... not happy). Actually a colleague today said something like "I get what you mean, but I see you don't also have a post decrying the way women are depicted in motor racing."
I don't like that either, but I don't go to motor racing, don't work in motor racing, don't even have anything to do with automotive stuff. I don't even own a car. Consequently I don't notice it when it happens cause it's not in my face. But this is something that happens in my industry, and happens to me personally. It gets oxygen from me and women like me who notice this stuff because it matters to us.
Thanks for coming by and taking the time to write, anyway. If nothing else I have three interesting new blogs to read. :)
But the reaction has been curious, and Raena has articulated the 'bigger issue' very eloquently. As someone who was there, saw it and is a respected professional in the web industry, she is someone you can listen to with respect and know she's likely to have a valid point.
Your apology to me as a customer, but not to critics at large is even more curious.
Debate is healthy. 'Sex Sells' is indeed a tried and true marketing strategy. However dismissing people's unease as irrelevant because it apparently comes from a feminist perspective isn't the right step forward. Some of the response from netregistry staff has been unthinkingly defensive. The media attention has been given you great coverage, so I reckon you're on a winner here. But that misses the point.
We live in a world where a programmer can show up to a user group meeting, and be asked "Oh, are you here with your boyfriend" because she is very obviously a minority. This is why somen women in IT are sensitive to sport locker room norms.
Feminism is actually your friend in this issue. It's a tool to open all our eyes to innate prejudice. Stopping to think about why people might have objected, and understanding their perspective might help bring about real change. If this 'incident' sparks that kind of reflection and real debate, then you haven't just had a winning marketing campaign, you've made a lasting contribution.
I see Jonathan's post below shows he appreciates the bigger picture we need to consider.
I think the issues that are being raised are interesting and worthwhile to debate - no objection from me there at all.
The sentiment I disagree with is that the marketing we undertook was in some way misguided or wrong and will damage our brand - I think to take that view fundamentally misunderstands what marketing is.
Remember the United Colors of Benetton advertising from the 80's? Hugely controversial, even more hugely successful.
I recognise and accept there are some we may have annoyed or upset. I'm happy to engage with those opinions. But that discussion takes us away from our marketing to topics that underpin our response to that marketing.
And I have to say that rereading the posts on this site, it is clear the quality of consideration of the matter is quite different to some of the more knee jerk reactions we have seen which is even more welcome.
Just to clarify though - I never said I did or didn't have a problem with stereotyping or meant to imply that we deliberately set out to stereotype - merely that it was an understandable (if unfortunate) byproduct of putting forward a creative concept in the most immediate and recognisable way. I plan to write more about the stereotyping feedback loop I observed in the last few days and why that shorthand to recognition is still prevalent, the role cultural ideology plays in dictating society and visa versa - and how it cuts both ways gender-wise - in future articles because there's plenty to consider and analyse here.
I certainly don't think you *meant* to stereotype, but it happened nonetheless. Explaining it away as an unfortunate side-effect also makes it sound like you think it might have been unavoidable, though, which is probably what I should have written instead of "doesn't have a problem".
Our intention was to present a fun, engaging, cheeky (yes, of course), light-hearted and irreverent face for our brand as we are actively fighting against the cold, generic marketing and images IT has largely become lumbered with. IT doesn't have to be all suits and ties, all zeroes and ones, all jargon and complexity. IT is a tool to achieve non IT goals, nothing more, and we are striving to put the human face and the emotion and the fun back into it.
Gosh, I love marketing almost as much as I love media deconstruction and cultural psychology! ;-)
IT generally has a major image problem and I'm glad you want to address that.
I don't think you're an extremist feminazi, etc, as such, no (I never used the term Feminazi). But what you're missing here is that you have taken my comments out of context (and I think that's unfair)... perhaps because by the time you reached my piece, your mind was already pretty much made up. But I do hope your readers bother to read the piece, without basing their conclusions off your quotes.
My reference to "hardcore" feminists is in regards to those extreme activists and figures who initially WROTE about it (and started the whole "controversy") - as opposed to those who joined in the debate, in their own time, in any way. And yes, those three initial writers/twitterers are "hardcore feminists" - that's not a derogatory comment, it's simply a descriptive. Feminism has an ideological spectrum. I'm a feminist - I'm known for my feminist writings! That's the irony you're missing here. When I'm not working for NR, I hang out with (mostly academic) feminists. Read through the letters section of my site - I have a 90% female readership, all feminists. But they had no problem with any of the work I'd done. I have written (and spoken on radio) in regards to a number of feminist issues (including the NRL), I made my name online for a mostly feminist deconstruction of Big Brother (and was published by SMH for it). I'm a feminist! I dwell on the feminist side of the ideological spectrum. But that doesn't mean I don't disagree with others who are on that extreme - on the harder ("extreme") end of it. I do, this time!!
And if you had quoted me properly, you would have bothered to mention that before the quote you give, I say:
"Since feminist ideology and culture is divided amongst itself, I'd like to point out that it was by no means a battle between our campaign and some all-encompassing voice against sexism - in fact, it was just a few (but a few who knew how to work their way into a press coverage many would ultimately blame myself and the rest of the team for creating). Still, bet you never thought you'd come here to see me write an article defending my work against angry feminists! But such is the case - the following article will sit bizarrely beside ones such as my swipe at NRL culture , or all the countless others I have written against the cultural manifestations of patriarchal exploitation. This is the story of the "Naughty Netregistry Nurses" (as dubbed by press). Truth be told, mind you, they weren't anywhere near as naughty as they were made out to be. ....
Women have every right to be angry (in this society) - I've said nothing but this, for the past few years of my personal online presence - and I'm familiar with the pitfalls of that anger (anger in general is, at the end of the day, laid with pitfalls) when going about communicating what is, at its core, a valid problem. I'm less sympathetic, I must say, to my fellow social commentators who often choose targets on the basis of their opportunity to give them press coverage of any sort (or a microphone on Twitter, perhaps - how very now), at the expense of adequately analysing that target. For three days, the company I work for and I, Netregistry, became a target, thanks to a campaign of mine."
But you leave that out.
You also forget to mention that I bother to criticise those men, etc, on forum boards who have attacked the feminists attacking this (I call them "hardcore misogynists" in the article).
The truth is, either side of the extreme ends of this dichotomy, is the majority of people. MOST people are moderate. And the reality of marketing is that it is about MOST. That's nothing to do with NR - that's every single product on the face of the Earth. Unless the product exclusively targets a small niche demo, etc, then that is the case (but even then, that's your "most" - you'll always deliberate create material that pleases the majority). So my point - that you again misrepresented - is that ironically, even though the media loves putting forward these things as "battles", and that's how those enraged one way or the other happily buy into them, there's no winner or loser here. Because yes, the feminist writers who had such a strong reaction to it are only going to be further cheered on by their readership and (my other point) got exactly the press attention they want. Conversely, most NR customers had no problem with it, and more have been drawn to the company than repelled. And even though that may also be because the IT and SME world is predominantly male, many of those customers who enjoyed it are women, yes, because - even though you might not like this reality - the majority of women do not hold such extreme views. And even some who are more extreme actually liked it (gasp!!) because they got the irony of the campaign (they're actually sending up the absurdity - and yes, ludicrous sexuality - of modern medical and pharmaceutical industry).
So while I can totally understand your concern about the way women are treated in media, etc, please don't take my analysis of MARKETING facts, and then project some personal ideology of mine or NR onto them! That's really not what those sections of my article are about.
But look, I am sincerely frustrated by all this in one aspect - that it means I am here arguing with women like yourself - because I am actually on the same team, at the end of the day! But you got this one wrong, I'm afraid. And I don't say that to you as Aaron Darc of NR - I say that to you as a fellow writer and thinker against the Patriarch.
Your comment (and the other NR folks in here come to think) reads as if you think I'm saying that you did this deliberately. I'm not saying that at all; not once did I say anything like that. In fact I even say a couple of times that I think it's unintentional. It sounds as though you feel quite put out by the fact that some people have chosen to characterise it as a deliberate act on your part. I don't think that's the case at all. I'm sorry if you think I meant that.
My problem with what you wrote there was twofold. The first problem is that you're tarring everyone who doesn't like that you did with the same brush by saying "our detractors" and "extremism" in, more or less, the same breath. If that's not what you meant, then fine, but I'm sure you can see how it reads that way. And yeah there were a few people who were getting quite worked up and being extremely shrill, but equally there were others (even in the cesspit that is Twitter) who were being quite moderate. It's not accurate to say that *everyone* who had something to say about it was being a dick.
I noticed you mentioned that you're reasonably new to that end of the market so maybe the idea hasn't come up for you before, but the way women are portrayed isn't always positive (even when it's not intended), and it's a very real and legitimate problem for women in the industry. It's not extremism, not at all.
The second problem is the assumption that we 'extremists' have nothing to do with your market. I mean, look at Donna, above, who *is* a customer and *does* agree with me. And I'm sure you know from reading above that I'm certainly not a paying customer, but I'm absolutely in your demographic -- to dismiss the concerns of people like us as 'haha, not my problem' is shortsighted and frankly pretty naive.
Again, if we're not the kind of people you meant, then fine. But it didn't read this way at all.
Thanks for stopping by.
I'm not saying you didn't bother to read it, but I think when people bring their agendas to something, they're not always joining the dots properly. And you know as well as I do that most people will NOT bother clicking the link, so their impression of my article rests with how you choose to present it. You took a few sentences and placed them out of context, yes. You used lines of mine to suggest that I come from the "opposing team" (so to speak) who just sees all feminists as "extremists" - when, as the part of my article I did paste above shows, is far, far from the case. You also suggest that I'm someone who is oblivious to gender issues, and that is far, far from the case (as my article also makes clear - as do my other work, which the article then links to within the article). I do concede that you mentioned that the rest of it "didn't bother you". But shucks! What good is that when you don't even mention what that is (as a counter-action to what you found objectionable) and then you seem to misunderstand what I'm saying in the parts you present. I find that misleading analysis, I have every right to point out parts that may contradict how you're presenting it as.
The irony is that I think most of the women who reacted so angrily to this are themselves guilty of lumping everyone together, because they implicitly (or sometimes, more directly!) suggest that anyone who does not agree with their particular kind of feminist view can not be a feminist or is a sexist, and I totally reject that (as do many feminists on the topic of our stand). To the thousands of people who read my work (I do national radio, and my former website had over 80,000 hits a month - this current one of mine gets around 20,000) the suggestion that I am a suitable target for this debate is just ludicrous. And I think some have now realised that (would have been nice to have thought about things more before some of those people were so happy to fire off for media), so now it's a backtracking "but it wasn't intentional, we admit that". But intention has everything to do with it, it's the fundamental premise of communication.
What you're really talking about when you speak of "intention" is really subjective perception (totally different thing), and what I'm saying in my article is simply that yours is the minority (it's not that we don't give a shit about you, it's that many more people responded positively to the campaign than negatively). That's a fact. The campaign was a success. Don't get me wrong, I sympathise with you - I'm a minority, too - but it's still a fact. And that's not because they're all male chauvinists who enjoyed it, it's because even most of the women aren't so extreme in their reaction to what is and isn't "sexism". people actually took from it exactly what we "intended". This campaign is not objectively sexist - it's sexist to a small group of people, based very much on what governs their perception. And as long as some of those points are based on such extremities, the majority of people (including women!!) will react completely opposite to how you want them to, and that may even negatively impact your cause in future (if it's truly to make changes, and not just revel in its own collectivism). You must make your arguments carefully, or you will try to persuade people with an argument they can't relate to.
Most people think that you reading into the pregnant woman's head not being in that shot is just ridiculous projection on your part. I'm one of them. That is just a standard commercial pregnancy shot from medical advertising. It's not saying "This is all you're worth", it's saying "This is about pregnancy which is about - gasp - having a baby inside your stomach"!!! I mean, really. How many expecting mothers - who that kind of material is aimed at - do you think storm out of their doctor's office, outraged, because there's a shot of a pregnant woman on her leaflet that reduces her identity by not showing her face?!?!? Not many. 99.99999999999% of women would never find that remotely offensive. I think many women would find it comforting that it's portrayed at all (as so many critics have pointed out, usually women are not even bothered relevant enough to include beyond being a sex object - we did). You clearly see motherhood as being a symbol of the patriarchal view that a woman's role is to pop out babies. But don't let that muddy your perception of pregnancy or motherhood to such a point where you project upon an image like that. Motherhood should be a choice, but it's a beautiful thing that can very much exist outside of your rejection of sexist views on women's roles. Many women would be offended by your perception of that image - ironically, more than men would be. But I think you were looking for the reaction, by then. You said you had no problem when you saw the stand (before you got pumped up by the feminist reactions you read) - but that image was a huge poster (hung twice) at that stand, and you didn't seem to find it so confronting or objectionable.
And look, I know that the male dominance in the IT world must make it extremely uncomfortable for the women involved in it, at times. I know there would be legitimate cases (those REAL "booth babes" at the show made me ill). How do you think I feel? I remember my first day at NR - I walked in and thought "Oh, that's right - digital companies are full of men!" I was nervous, I was worried, I actually tried to tone myself down!! And in the end, I realised I was wrong. I was just bringing my fears - the resonance of my own unfortunate experiences of collective male mentality - and projecting them all over them. If someone had a bad morning and seemed grumpy, I would worry they had a problem with me. And I eventually realised I was wrong. And that's a good thing. Don't get so hung up on your hang ups, that you can't also see cases where things are not examples of what you hate or fear in life. I wish many of the critics of this campaign could learn the same lesson.
Throughout all this, everyone from NR (and we're all different, as Larry has pointed out - how refreshing that a CEO puts that forward!) has continuously made the effort to engage this debate - even on blogs like this one (where we're now well and truly away from the commercial world of media, etc, which other companies would see as having no relevancy to a national demo who are in the hundreds of thousands). I think that shows they very much do care about this issue, or they'd be happy to let it go and enjoy the benefits of the publicity. Donna probably wouldn't find that in many other IT companies, whether they advertised with nurses or not.
Sure. I'd do it if I were writing about something on SitePoint, for example, because a lot of people read that and not all of them are going to go ahead and do that (I don't think I'd post about *this* issue there, jsut speaking generally). But over here with my pitifully small readership, yeah, I had a case of the slacks. I'd like to think the five or six people who do read my blog would take the time to do that, but it's true that I should have done it here anyway, because it's the right thing to do.
And I did say that most of it was fine, except for characterising some *pretty moderate women* as hardcore feminists. I'm sure I could have said so louder and I'm sorry that I didn't make that clearer. I'll go and edit the post if you like to indicate this better.
I wasn't trying to cast it as the opposing team at all, as I pointed out. Clearly I didn't do a very good job of that. I'm *trying* to say that you have a misguided opinion of what constitues extremism, and what constitutes people in your market.
Indeed you do. I'm sorry you feel that I tried to mislead. I'd really like to believe that people would go and read it for themselves, and I wouldn't feel comfortable dumping a bunch of your text onto my blog here anyway.
Again, though, this was the only point I took umbrage with and felt like commenting on. Overall it's a really good post. If anything I actually felt better having read about the process you went through in developing the idea, not to mention the fact that you'd taken the time to write about it at all.
You keep using these loaded words, 'sexism' (I never used that term, did you notice?) and 'extremist/extreme/extremism'. If you don't agree that they're loaded I'm sure you can at least see how they're quite strong -- people don't usually say sexist outside of the context of suggesting that the person is being wilfully sexist, and people don't say extremee when they mean 'not to my liking' -- extremist means WAY left field.
I don't think I can put it any clearer: it's my deeply held belief that it is not extremism to say that women are depicted poorly in IT; it's a fact that is quite noticeable to many people and affects many more.
It's hardly a new idea to talk about reducing women to body parts. Usually it happens with the good old tits and arse, but I'm not sure why a pregnant belly ought to be any different. And yeah, 99.999-infinity% of people don't notice or care about that stuff in advertising, the Gruen Transfer's ratings notwithstanding, but that doesn't mean it's not there, or that one is not entitled to think about it. 99.999% of people don't think about astrophysics either.
Fire up your favourite search engine and search for the phrase body chopping. There's also a video that touchces on the idea and explains it better than I can. I'm sure you'll still think it's silly, but perhaps it'll show you I'm not just pulling the idea out of thin air. (Skip ahead to about 8:20 for the stuff about dismemberment.)
Please don't invalidate my views by characterising it as attention-seeking. It's a pretty cheap shot.
And believe me, if I just wanted to get a reaction, there are easier ways -- like having a little squeal about it on twitter, as an example, or being quite a lot more acid-tongued. if I were really very angry about this, believe me, that would be extremely clear.
Actually, I did. As I said:
At the booth. I had a feeling of being icked out at the booth. I was uncomfortable with it.
I only wrote about it after the fact because I found it interesting that it had been discussed at all (not "pumped up", as you put it), and for whatever reason occurred to me at the time I felt compelled to share what i felt. If anything, I tend to *undervalue* my gut instinct about things like this; I was kind of surprised anyone else had bothered to raise it at all.
Yeah. I only saw the red pants girls in passing, and I didn't feel especially compelled to take note of who it was.
I'll agree it's a bit rude for the chatterboxes to only discuss yours and not the others. If you know who the owners of that booth were, feel free to share and I'll give you my solemn promise that I will write them a pissy email.
It's also entirely possible that yours is the tallest poppy; there were a lot of low or no-profile exhibitors there.
I guess what I'm trying to show is that even low-level stuff like this contributes to the problem. It's nowhere near as bad as putting 'kiss' on some chick's lycra-clad arse.
I get what you *meant* to do, which was to be cheeky and funny. I still feel that this campaign is an example of unconsciously creating an experience that isn't welcoming to women. I *don't* think this campaign, or even your post, is an example of overt and deliberate hostility. I'm not even super-furious about what happened, just a bit disappointed.
Look I'm sure you're heartily sick of reading about it and I have to go to bed. But I do think it's good thing that you and the others took the time to respond to me and others. I'm especially pleased to see you chose to do this as good old-fashioned comments as distinct from a 140-character ten-second brainfart. Thankyou for visiting and responding, I really mean it.
Raena, thank you for a great post. I am pleased to see Larry Bloch also showing up in the comments here. This sort of discourse online is harder to find here in the US.
It's curious to me how many who have take issue with our marketing communicate their opinions. In your piece, you said
"Finally we have the cheesy old bimbo-and-sugar daddy trope—whether she’s a sugar babe or a trophy wife, this is an image of a woman as a sexual accessory, and daddy here looks extremely pleased with the way his bit of fluff is fondling his big red tie there."
Surely this sort of language perpetuates the stereotype as much as the image may appear to. For all we know, this could be a picture of a self-made millionaire who met an old homeless man doing charity work at a soup kitchen and fell in love. Sure, he's smiling.
My point being that calling professional working people "booth babes", "bimbo's", "sugar babes' and "trophy wives" whether accurate or not is as damagingly stereotyping as what is being complained about.
For what it's worth, I was pretty offended that our "nurses" were labelled "booth babes" - it was a wrong categorisation and hardly a show of support for two very intelligent young students who were supposedly being exploited. Isn't calling them "bimbo's" a little like implying a sexual assault victim is partly to blame?
You'll note I tried to avoid using the words "booth babe" in my post to describe the nurses; it's certainly loaded. I also chose not to use the word 'sexist'; it's a word that's ordinarily used with an accusatory tone and usually implies a deliberate decision, and I don't by any means want to imply that NetRegistry did it deliberately.
It obviously didn't work very well because you, Jonathan and Aaron have all come back firing with comments that you didn't mean it and you meant it to be lighthearted. I get the message. I can see that, really I can. I'm just trying to point out how there are unintended consequences of using certain symbols.
Confession time: I did actually use the words 'booth babes' to tell a colleague that I'd seen them while wandering past (in fact, it was probably something along the lines of "Hey, there are totally booth babes over there!") which I accept is unfair, and with the benefit of taking the time to think about it I'm quite sorry I said so.
On the other hand, 'booth babes' itself is a concise shorthand to describe chicks at a booth who are there to stand out, as it were. We all find ourselves hobbled by preconceptions; for my part, I've been to enough events where there are chicks 'on display' whose only function is to hand you a flyer and pout for the camera. It's usually the right assumption to make. In your case it was not. Don't get me wrong, that's a good thing.
Thinking of that photo, sure, the girl on his lap *might* be a self-made millionaire, in much the same way as the pregnant woman *might* be the Prime Minister. But are these interpretations really the first thing that would come to mind to you? Really *really?* Marketing shorthand, remember.
That's not to mention the fact that the man is the one who's the focus of that photo -- he's facing the camera, he's the one wearing the symbols of success in business (suit, cigar) and she's the one who's 'slipped in to something more comfortable.'
I don't mean to get all Art Interpretation 101 or anything, but given that so much of this conversation revolves around stereotypes and marketing, it's hardly irrelevant to talk about it.
And yeah, I used those words to describe *the trope this image suggests* -- words that match the stereotype behind the image. Describing a concept depicted in a photo, especially one that is likely a staged stock photograph, is very different to me describing a real person. It'd be more accurate if I'd posted a picture of your nurses and said "Wahey, check out these bits of fluff."
And I'm sorry, but describing a *symbol* in a *staged* photo (again, not a real person) is miles away from accusing a real live sexual assault victim of being partially to blame. It's practically nothing like it, in fact.
Sure, describing staged photo's requires less diplomacy than talking about real people - I agree. And I'm not kidding myself, the dude is a captain of industry and the lady is clearly intended to be exactly what she is portrayed as.
I suppose I'm uncomfortable with an argument that says "don't treat women as sexual accessories" at the same time as calling them bimbo's and fluff. The language is degrading and I would think counter productive to the entire argument, which is that all people should be held in equal esteem, without preconceptions as to their status, role or respectability.
This is partly what makes some women say things like "you need toughen up, girls", because the language itself perpetuates a victim mentality that many women and men reject.
And I was wrong to use your quote as an example - I wasn't pointing to you specifically - or anyone for that matter.
In the end, I hired three your girls to do a job for my company - which they did admirably. And I know I don't really need to protect them because they had a ball and totally enjoyed themselves, but in the wash up I take exception to anyone treating any of my employees with that sort of disrespect indicated by the demeaning language used. And no, I don't believe the role we provided for them "asked for it". That is my reference to an assault victim.
I think we all want to live in that post-modern world where these suspicions of underlying motivations and unconscious culpability are seen for what they are - the human condition where no insult is intended and none is taken because we all understand where it comes from and are comfortable with it, not threatened by it.
Feminism will need to come to terms with that post modern world, because more and more people already inhabit it. Wars that are won are mostly not won unambiguously, but what is unambiguous is that feminism has won women the right to equality they did not previously enjoy. Certainly not universally, certainly not accepted by all, but nonetheless, the right to equality is now undeniable. There may be skirmishes left, but it is an art to know when to stop fighting because the war is won. You don't want to empower the reactionaries.
I think it's far too easy to underestimate the socialising power of marketing material. It's absolutely true that the vastest majority of people wouldn't look at a particular image and say that they consciously get a message of depersonalisation or whathaveyou from it (see above with Aaron).
The power of suggestion from repeated daily exposure means it doesn't need to be spelt out in black and white.
Sometimes you know you get an idea, especially as a designer that is really well - cool. You are convinced that it is totally perfect. You roll out the idea from a mere spark into a complete campaign, branding or project. The idea is so good, you get all your team mates on side too. But at no time do you sit back and look at the bigger picture - the impact that your finer details of your mega idea will have overall. The ethical business response.
You know it is good to have a little bit of an external review or roll ideas post a few peers not within the team. This type of review process can often tweak an idea and stop any embarrassing PR instances,; which can be enhanced even more by an aggressive defensive reaction when things go wrong.
Now I'm not saying NetRegistry didn't do this. But you do wonder.
Mind you I will say at least people will have name NetRegistry on their lips for a little while at least. So maybe it did work after all.
Firtly, it totally worked. Secondly, I think most people miss the point - thisis not social commentary, it's marketing. You identify a demographic target and you prepare material that connects with that target.
If we designed a marketing campaign for the target audience that frequents this forum and those like it, it would be witty, intelligent and different to what we did. It would also be considered completely weird by the majority of our audience, who are actually pretty happy with a bit of nudge nudge wink wink.
That's what so many "anti" posters miss. This is not about trying to ensure our material strikes a complete gender unbiased note, its about marketing, which is about cut through, humour, connection, engagement and communication. All that we did fantastically well. Couldn't be happier.
We weren't trying to please everyone, and probably fair to say we weren't trying to please the good people reading this blog, b y and large. Not should we have - there are too many niche perspectives to be able to successfully execute a marketing strategy and please everyone. That way leads pretty directly to boring and unsuccessful.
If you want to critique our marketing, then do so as a marketer, not a gender war warrior. Because to a marketer, the gender war warrior's perspective is irrelevant and marginalised.
I have to say, that if anyone was exploited in all this, it is the people who came out with predictable posts about sexism etc. That created the publicity that took our CeBIT stand from mildly entertaining to cult status. So a bit thank you to all of you.
Lastly, people have spoken of harm to women (and men), of damage and negative implications. That's really all just rubbish - there is no more harm than a Jacaranda tree causes to a person who doesn't like purple. It just raises interesting issues to debate for those of us who like to do so.
You identify a demographic target and you prepare material that connects with that target.
This is, unfortunately, the problem. 80+% or so of your overall targeted demographic are men ages 25 and up (although it's probably more like 95+% at events like this). If you only care about reaching your targeted demographic, then of course gorgeous young ladies in nurse costumes will be perfect.
The other, smaller, proportion of your targeted demographic is easily overlooked; because you target for the majority. However, it includes women who are spending a lot of time and effort trying to get more women into the industry, and who have thus become very aware of how marketing (unintentionally or otherwise) helps keep the current status quo. These women must make noise about the how your clever marketing idea makes it harder to get women into the industry because if they don't, how can it change?
When a respectable vendor uses the presence of women as merely a draw-card to get attendees to look at their display; the message you give about women in the industry isn't a positive one. If you'd skipped on the whole nurses outfits and instead put all your booth attendants in scrubs, gave them doctor name tags and had them all call each other doctor; then many of the problems that have been raised would have been averted. "But!" you might say, "Less people would have stopped by". It's probably true, and demonstrates my point.
Promoting the idea that a great deal more than 5% of your booth visitors will be female doesn't require boring marketing, it just requires more careful thought. Even if this year it is only 5%, at least you won't have made it harder on us who want to increase it to 6% next year.
We had many women visit our stand and compliment us on it. That's what you miss in all this, your fears that our marketing drives women away is not supported by the facts.
Again, I make the point that many of YOUR target demographic have moved on from gender war and the subtle nuances of sexist representation. They see it, they understand it and they're OK with it - they don't find it threatening.
So readers, Netregistry's bottom line is that the issues raised are interesting to debate and certainly worthwhile to understand, but are in my view at best marginal - and therefore difficult and counter productive to accommodate.
Our stand was on the other hand widely enjoyed and supported. I'd do it the same way again.
After reading more about the detail of Aaron's concept, I'd venture to say this campaign verged on brilliance. It targeted the market with the precision of a laser guided military sniper rifle.
The NetRegisty CeBIT booth campaign
* cut through.
* had a very human quality in a sea of dull techno-comm-PR
* had meaningful and clever context that twisted established IT PR norms
* wasn't the worst offender at CeBIT
It's a real shame the supporting artillery created such collateral damage.
Where your PR has gone off the rails is in your response to criticism. Not the campaign itself.
Despite the brilliance the campaign was icky. I'll take Raena's word for that. Having seen it herself, and presented quite excellent analysis of it (drawing on some well established methods of gender critique) I trust her judgment. But it was quite perfect for CeBIT. Having helped organise stands for CeBIT in the past I rejected suggestions we should have pretty young things wearing spandex on the stand.
The campaign was creative and innovative, but ultimately failed to be accountable for its message. Gary Barber's question about running the concept by someone outside the team is a good one. I'd be interested in Karen Lim-Sam's perspective on the furore. Given she acted to 'tone down' the nurse costumes by having the actors wear long sleeves and leggings beneath their outfits.
So, the campaign was successful. It has also given prominence to the real problems women face in the IT and Telecomms industry. I choose to see the glass is half full.
What's sad here is that the NR team has responded so defensively to legitimate criticism. What's sadder still is the fact that this campaign hit its market precisely because that market is still so overwhelmingly dominated by men. That is the real issue here.
Larry - Please don't make NetRegistry as tawdry as GoDaddy.
You have a golden opportunity here to expose the real problem in our industry, and perhaps take steps to address it. I'd suggest taking a leaf out of Google's books and start actively redressing the imbalance. Perhaps consider sponsoring a round of Girl Geek Dinners? Help promote women in the industry and encourage them to act as role models for the future. And be even more creative about how you portray people in your marketing materials.
http://girlgeekdinnerssydney.blogspot.com/
http://girlgeekdinnersmelbourne.wordpress.com/
http://girlgeekdinnersbrisbane05.eventbrite.com/
http://girlgeekdinnerscanberra.blogspot.com/
Many good points in your post. I don't think there's any chance NR will become as tawdry as GoDaddy.
I unfortunately have to go back to my much more mundane and boring job, but will revisit this page and read what's here.
It's been a blast!
Hear, hear! Spot on.
After reading Aaron’s blog entry, I love the original two ideas for the campaign (the first two poster drafts, with the droopy server and the "need a boost?"). They’re cute.
Some of the final products took the idea and ran with it a little further than I personally like, especially as a multimedia graduate who had recurring motifs, gaze, and all that burned into their consciousness since first year Uni. The I See What You Did There effect haunts me on a regular basis (but I wouldn’t have it any other way).
I was working hard during CeBIT and didn't get a chance to really see this stuff. Had I seen it, it would have been a “well, you get that” mental shrug – not to my taste, but whatever. Not fussed.
Reading the NR comments on this blog left me cold, however. (Maybe I should have printed them out on thicker paper).
It’s great to see their leaders seeking out commentary on the issue and responding – good move. It’s just a shame that their responses were lacking an editing process.
What would have actually endeared me to their brand would have been an honest, simple “Whoops, no harm implied, sorry it bothered a few people!" Flickr's marketing team do this well – straightforward, punchy and genuine dialogue. If Valve had done something like this, I think their response would have been equally simple, clear, and most likely endearingly silly, being Valve. Their recent blog posts about the TF2 Spy leak, for example, are nicely done ;) Helps that they have Jay Pinkerton as their writer, of course.
Instead they come off sounding... kinda like the competition they were trying to distinguish themselves from, to me. Tis a shame.
Donna's advice is excellent, otoh.
I just put forward a scenario, but as expected in an immature fashion you went for the usual PR defensive position.
I didn't say anyone was exploited. I was just looked at you marketing from a distance. Frankly the entire point was to get people to engage with your staff, then they would do the rest. In that respect I have no idea if it worked. Only you know the conversion ratio. If your staff are good it would have been a excellent result.
I suppose we can always trot out the "its just business" screw the moral aspects etc. Well sadly ALL business is personal....
My mistake in loose usage personal pronouns. So my apologies for calling you a "gender war warrier". My point was a general one, but I can see how my language made it seem I was attacking you. Sorry.