Overly Sexual Roxy Ad Causes Social Media Stir
A clip from the Roxy promo video – youtu.be/GCji6TiJjbE
Australian women’s surfwear brand Roxy has been slammed on social media for using an overly sexual advertising promotion for their latest pro surfing contest – the Pro Biarritz 2013 in Biarritz, France.
The video shows an attractive female surfer (presumed to be five-time world champion - Stephanie Gilmore) waking up in the morning, putting on a white shirt, walking around the house, then taking it off for a shower – before heading off for a surf.
The official hasgtag for this promotion: #WhoAmIJustGuess is getting a fair amount of comments – some users saying they like the ad, while others saying this is overly sexualised. Through-out the video you don’t actually see the lady ride a wave, but you do see plenty close ups of her body, and butt!
Now the video is nowhere to be seen on the official Roxy Facebook page - but it is certainly generating plenty of discussion across Facebook and Twitter. There is also quite a bit of product placement throughout the video, and having a sexy lady tout your products always seems to get high levels of online exposure.
But the commentary from the public hasn’t been entirely positive, one Twitter user going on to say, “promo video is unlikely to help women’s surfing to be taken seriously!” and another, “No need this kind of video to promote a great sport…”
There is even an online petition on Change.org looking to gain support against this type of ‘sexy marketing’ and get Roxy to change the way they do these promotions.
Here is the video:
What do you think? Is this promotional video a little too sexy, and not doing enough ‘promoting’ of the actual event?
