Claire Beale On Advertising

In the days when admen were men, and women made the tea, there was a popular advertising genre known as "two Cs and a k." It was shorthand for the way women were used in ads and you'll have seen it in commercials hundreds of times. Two women (the two "C"s, or rather two c**ts) stand in a kitchen (the "K") fretting about how to clean the floor/feed the family/wash whiter for a fiver.

It's a formula still used by some brands today, though you'd be hard pushed to find anyone who'd dare employ that old, offensive shorthand. The ad-land lexicon has definitely become more PC since the "two Cs in a K" days. But according to a new report from the European Council the industry's portrayal of women remains stuck in the Dark Ages.

The Council has just blasted the use of women in ads around Europe, claiming that women are vulgarised, commodified‚ and used as crude sex objects. It says ads too often show women "in situations which are humiliating and degrading, or even violent and offensive to human dignity." Pretty strong stuff. So I tried to think of some ads that degrade and humiliate my sex, ads that are violent, offensive. It's not easy. In fact, though there are plenty of offensive ads, their crime tends to be an absence of quality rather than an absence of equality.

Of course, sex sells, no question. So there are plenty of ads that use sexy imagery to get our consumption glands dribbling. Take Lynx. Its ads revel in heaving cleavages and near-naked women portrayed as objects of sexual desire. Are they offensive? Probably to some. But they're funny, knowing and generally leave you with the distinct impression that women really have the upper hand. And I can think of a lot of ads that treat men as sex objects: Diet Coke Man recently made a return to our TV screens, all bare chest, rippling six-pack and ogling female fans.

And it's not much help to turn to the report itself for specific examples: it doesn't give many. It does cite a Dolce & Gabbana ad with a woman being pinned down "in a position which suggests rape is intended", an example, the report says, of porn-chic, using fantasies of female sexuality to sell luxury goods.

Is the European Council's report a gross overreaction, then? Not necessarily. It's worth pointing out that the report is looking at women in ads across Europe, not just the carefully self-regulated and PC-sensitive UK, where a hint of areola in a shower commercial is a close as we get to nudity – unlike France, where ads for everything from chocolate bars to furniture polish employ naked flesh with excited abandon.

The truth is that ad agencies here are world leaders in the art of understanding consumers, so perhaps it's not surprising that UK advertising is relatively sophisticated in its depiction of women. According to a new book about marketing to females, Inside Her Pretty Little Head, women are driven by a utopian impulse based around harmony, security, naturalness and, yes, femininity. Think Cath Kidston, Innocent, M&S. No room here for vulgar, violent and offensive imagery if you want to make a sale.

So the UK holds up pretty well on the question of women in advertising. But it's hard to argue against the Council's concerns about the use of unrealistic female role models in ads (thin, beautiful) and its proposal to make "incitement to discrimination an offence in advertising media". The intentions are good, they're just wide open to abuse of interpretation.

The last thing British advertising needs is more interference from a nannying European bureaucracy, and any threat to advertising freedoms must be fiercely fought. But the industry will only be able to head off such threats if it's seen to act fairly and responsibly in its portrayal of women... and men.

GOOD ADVERTISING practice was top of the agenda at the Dorchester in London last week when the cream of British marketers gathered for the annual Isba lunch. Isba actually stands for the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers, but the organisation is trying to throw off its stuffy image by calling itself simply Isba, and has introduced the sort of colourful new logo that brands use when they're trying to persuade you they're not nearly as boring as you might think.

This year's shindig took advertising freedom as its theme. The guest speaker was Chris Smith, the new chief of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) watchdog.

Smith, a former Cabinet minister and a man who knows a thing or two about media regulation, is clear that UK advertising does a fine job of self-regulating its activities to ensure that ads are seen as trusted and responsible. The ASA received more than 20,000 complaints last year and changed or withdrew over 2,000 ads that it deemed to be offensive or misleading. But none of this has stopped the Government imposing new rules on advertising. I've written about the new ban on advertising junk food to children. Alcohol advertising is also under pressure. And the subject of women in advertising, as described above, could spark restrictions. Meanwhile toy advertising has been attacked, and green pressure groups are scrutinising car and airline advertising. The thin end of the wedge has already been gnawed away.

So Smith and all those present at the Isba lunch have a fight on their hands if they're to preserve the remaining principles of self-regulation and head off new bans. As marketers lingered over their coffee and truffles, though, it was hard to detect an air of urgency, a spirit of fight. Let's hope that was merely the effects of a fine lunch and not the sort of ingrained apathy that has got us to the perilous state we're in now.

THE LONDON ad scene will soon see a new force emerging in the guise of Canadian communications firm Cossette.

Cossette, headed by Claude Lessard, has been building up a string of UK assets, including the ad agency Miles Calcraft Briginshaw Duffy, the DM agency Elvis, and the PR company Band & Brown.

Now Cossette has bought a controlling stake in one of the UK's best digital agencies, Dare. Cossette has paid £10m for a 65 per cent stake in Dare, and now plans to bring the digital agency together with its other assets to form a new UK communications group that will offer advertisers cross-discipline, integrated solutions. Many of the bigger, more established communications groups are attempting to do the same sort of thing with their agencies, but burying internal politics and managing conflicting egos means that progress towards true integration is slow.

With Cossette's assets all working through intense, and potentially lucrative earn-outs, perhaps the Canadian firm will have more chance of success. Or will all those new millions prove a distraction?

Beale's best in show E.on

Do you know what E.ON is? No shame in not having a clue, even E.ON seems a little confused. For starters, is it E.ON or e.on? The company logo is all friendly, unthreatening lower-case lettering, but check out the website and you'll find the company name written in bold, forceful capitals.

The identity crisis is not surprising. Until recently E.ON was known as Powergen and a leaked internal document published last week suggests that the company is not best pleased with its own marketing efforts to tell us about the name change. This new ad campaign from TBWA hopes to change all that, position E.ON as a leading supplier of power and gas, and ramp up its green credentials.

The ad itself reminds me of every British holiday I've ever been on. We see typical sea-side scenes stirred up by a mounting wind, blowing up skirts, whipping across desolate beaches, chasing balls up the street, lifting spirits. It's full of bright summery colours and manages to make our miserable summer weather seem fun. It is "The Wind of Change."

Unfortunately, as brand names go, E.ON is a stinker and much worse than the does-what-it-says Powergen. This is a case of nice ad, shame about the brand.

Claire Beale is editor of 'Campaign'
claire.beale@haynet.com