Charlie pointed me to this post on Stephanie Quilao’s Back in Skinny Jeans (whom he also interviewed on BlogWorks….shameless company promotion) via AdRants, about a recent ad campaign in Britain for the Cannons Health Clubs. The ad asks what your motivation for going to the gym is and (honestly) answers: “Because a new girl has started at work and she’s hot.” Stephanie and AdRants have assessed that this campaign wouldn’t go over so well in America, which I agree with, but not because it isn’t true. How many Gen X and Y American women do you know that started out going to the gym solely because they want to feel healthier and not because they want to lose weight? Anyone? Anyone? Didn’t think so.
The truth is women everywhere go to the gym because they want to look good. They try the Atkins and South Beach and Cabbage Soup diets because they want to lose weight. There are entire sites devoted to Thinspiration. Granted, many of the sites are pro-Anorexia and pro-Bulimia, but there are a lot of legit health and fitness sites like this one and this one and this one that suggest posting a picture of your celebrity body goal on your refrigerator or even a picture of yourself to remind yourself what you do or don’t want to look like. Somehow that seems a lot worse to me.
I think we can learn and apply the cultural differences in the UK/US ad industry to the differences in the PR industry quite easily. As much as Americans are skeptical of the PR, there are only a few high-profile bloggers who voice those opinions. As we learned from Tom Coates and his conversations with the UK PR community, there are a hell of a lot of UK bloggers who are vehemently anti-PR and are not the least bit afraid to voice those opinions.
AdRants seems to think that this is only a PC thing, but I think it goes deeper than that. I’m starting to think we’re experiencing a full-on role reversal. It’s a generalisation, but I was always under the impression that the British were a more quiet, reserved people, while Americans were the outlandish ones, but I think this ad (and the response to it), proves the opposite.
Original story and photo from Steve Portigal and his Flickr account
