Next up: Rosie Yakob, the talented co-founder of “Genius Steals“, which she runs along with her husband Faris Yakob.
Here are Rosie’s two picks and a pan.
Two Ads I Like
Ariel’s Share the Load
As creators and curators of culture, I believe our industry has a responsibility for the narratives we put into the world. This ad is from a while ago, but it’s always stuck with me. I was reminded of it recently, reading about how women continue to do 60% more of the unpaid household work – from cleaning the house to the mental accounting that goes along with having kids (remembering permission slips, helping with projects. etc.)
It’s one of the reasons women can’t have it all, because most men aren’t doing their fair share. It’s still a problem in the western world, and even moreso in patriarchal countries like India, which is one of the reasons why this ad is so powerful.
Billie’s Project Body Hair
Billie is a razor brand that isn’t anti-body hair. So often, brands that target women tell them that they aren’t good enough, or that they need to change something in order to be better. It’s modern day body shaming, but from brands. However, Billie used their platform to show body hair is simply a part of life. Of course they want to sell razors, but they do so in a way that says “however, whenever, IF EVER…” instead of going the body shaming route.
As creators and curators of culture, I believe our industry has a responsibility for the narratives we put into the world.
Ashley Armitage, who also directed Project Body Hair, said, “In our film we wanted to normalize pubic hair because it’s exactly that—normal,” she says. “Body hair grows on people of all genders, and it doesn’t suddenly become ‘gross’ or ‘unhygienic’ when it is on a woman, trans woman, or nonbinary individual. We wanted to show that body hair is a choice; shave it, wax it, grow it, or do a bit of both. All are valid.”
One I Don’t Like
Intuit/Turbo Tax’s Free
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lElVSyHtUE
Oh the ways in which this ad annoys me. Sure, the message is you can file your taxes with them for “free” or “free, free, free” or some other combination of the words “free” and “free.” But it doesn’t address all of the public discourse: The fact that Intuit spends literally millions of dollars each year lobbying the government *against* measures that make it easier to pay taxes.
If time is money, then Intuit is actually making it incredibly expensive — not free — for most Americans to file their taxes. Back to the ad itself, what the actual fuck?! I can’t even. The only way it could be better was if it were for :15 instead of :60. And even then, that would have been too long.
