Rethink it....

My husband recently went with a friend to a Harley Davidson dealership. Mom – if you are reading, don’t be alarmed. We are not getting a motorcycle. Now, why anyone in their right mind would ride on something with substantially less metal around them than the SUVs they share the road with, I may never know. That is another topic for another post.

So the guys walked into the dealership and they were greeted by a sign that read "SAVE THE TATAS" in bright pink letters. Just digest that for a minute.

Yes, it read save the tatas. When I heard this, I immediately concluded that Harley ventured into a co-branding effort with Hooter’s restaurants or maybe Champion sports bras to attract female riders (for all of you marketers – I heard that women are the fastest growing segment of riders). Needless to say, my assessment was a little off.

As I later learned, the sign is part of an edgy campaign to increase awareness among young men and women about breast cancer. It seems that traditional vehicles are not reaching the 250,000 women under 40 who have breast cancer. The sign is akin to another campaign from Rethink Breast Cancer that features a video called "Save the Boobs."

If you haven’t seen the actual video, it features a voluptuous, young woman in a bikini strolling poolside as a swarm of young male onlookers fixate on her. The voiceover tells the audience that they “know they like them.”  Then just when the viewer thinks the ad will feature a car or a hamburger, it abruptly stops and issues a call to action - end breast cancer.

Rethink is using what naturally appeals to people to get their attention – sex - because let’s face it - it does. We have a physiological response to things of a suggestive nature and we likely have an emotional response too. That emotional response may inspire men to be more concerned about the women they care for and the women who have taken care of them (girlfriends, wives, mothers, sisters).

For the most part it seems that it's not that offensive - we see women wearing less on television shows, don't we? I do wonder how society would respond to a bold, suggestive campaign to fight prostate cancer? Can you imagine where they would take it? I predict that we won’t see this anytime soon because women’s bodies seem easier to objectify, again another topic for another post. In the meantime, read about the ad campaign and rethink it.