At this time every year, a huge online buzz forms around Christmas adverts. Several big retailers put a lot of time, money and expertees into creating thoughtful adverts, or sometimes even short films, in order to boost their sales at the busiest shopping time of the year.
Christmas adverts are vital to festive sales, mostly because they get customers talking about their brand. Often, there’s a heartwarming story, ususally involving a child or a dog or something else cute and/or fluffy. Call me cynical, but advertisers at Christmas are extremely good at selling us products under the guise of something “heartwarming”.
The most awaited advert is usualy John Lewis, who this year spent £7million, including payment for advertising slots, on their Buster the Boxer campaign.
However, the advert which caught my eye was from Marks and Spencer.
It tells the story of a little boy who writes to Mrs Claus, wife of Santa, to ask for help getting a Christmas present for his older sister. Mrs Claus then sneaks out and gets the present, much to the little boy’s delight, who proudly takes the credit when his sister opens a brand-spanking-new pair of shiny shoes on Christmas morning. Mrs Claus then returns home and quickly resumes position on the sofa, pretending nothing has happened when her husband comes back through the door.
Its common to see brands using “feminism” as a way of connecting with a female audience. Words such as “empowerment” or “sisterhood” are often used to make us feel like if we buy this product, we’re empowering ourselves! We’re being strong and independent!
I use quotation marks around this kind of “feminist” advertising, because I don’t identify it as true feminism. It is “trendy feminism”. It has the appearance of “girl power” but really, it says nothing at all about empowering women, and if it does, it is usually only targeting a small percentage of white females.
This is exactly what M&S have done with their latest advert. Mrs Claus goes out and does Santa Claus’ job for him, how “strong” and “independent” and “powerful” of her! When it came up on my news feed, I saw comments such as “Go Mrs Claus!” and the general consensus seemed to be positive.
However, I did find aspects of the advert troubling. Whilst of course its just an advert, this is an advert that millions of people will be watching every day. As I said, Christmas adverts have become a sort of “indicator” that its the start of the festive period. The attention that people on social media give to these adverts is huge, which is why I am discussing it.
Firstly, we see women and men in their traditional gender roles; Mrs Claus is expected to stay at home and look after the house, whilst Mr Claus goes to work. This seems like an extremely old-fashioned depiction of the modern family, and I was surprised that M&S weren’t acknowledging their millions of female customers with full time jobs, struggling to maintain domestic perfection whilst being an equal breadwinner. I would have loved to see Mr and Mrs Claus as a team, delivering the Christmas presents together, or even acknowledgement that Mrs Claus has a proper life outside of her grotto.
Secondly, the advert perpetuates the myth of the “secret life” of women, sneakily doing things behind their oblivious husbands’ backs. We are familiar with the sexist concept that a man’s business is “public”, whereas a woman’s is “private”. Mrs Claus is only permitted to leave the domestic sphere in secret, and hides all evidence of her excursion in order to protect Santa’s ego. He can’t possibly know that Mrs Claus helped him on his big night! The idea that behind every strong man is a strong woman is unhealthy in many ways, as it suggests that women are forbidden from taking the spotlight, claiming work as their own and having their own visible space in the “man’s world” of work.
However, the advert does imply something about unpaid female labour, acknowledging the services provided by women, particularly mothers, which goes unnoticed. Mrs Claus gets absolutely no credit from Santa for her actions, yet displays a selfless and kind initiative by helping the little boy.
Whilst M&S clearly meant this to be a sort-of feminist advert, it really isn’t. This is just one example of superficial feminism that just grazes the surface of women’s issues, contributing to the plethora of advertisers using half-arsed feminism as a way to engage female audiences and seem “progressive”.
Christmas adverts are extremely clever in the way that retailers use them to create a hype about their brand at the most profitable time of year. But its time that advertisers stopped pretending to have a political message, however subtle, in their stories. In my opinion, M&S have got it completely wrong this year.
Maybe they should have just stuck to a trampolining dog.