Charles Barkley in a dress for Weight Watchers may be garnering a lot of attention, but Danny feels it misses the mark on helping men with weight loss and body image issues.
When I first read about Charles Barkley being the latest spokesperson for Weight Watchers I took it as a good thing. For a long time guys with weight and body image issues have been pretty quiet about such things and I think that Barkley speaking up on such a large platform as Weight Watcher is a big step towards giving guys like that a voice on those topics. I loved the simplicity of the first ad he did.
It doesn’t go as deep as I would like on the situation of men and weight loss, but I do like how the ad shows someone like me, a man just like any other, using the Weight Watchers program.
Even though this ad won’t make me go out and join that program for weight loss, it does give space for men to say that there are those among us that are interested in losing weight by some means other than the latest exercise/weight training craze (yes, Weight Watchers does involve exercise but it seems that most of the ads are around watching what you eat).
Well there is a new ad set to start airing in the next few days with Charles Barkley in front of the camera again. But I’m not too sure of its effectiveness. Take a look at some coverage on the ad, below (with bits of the ad itself included).
In the new ad we see Barkley in a black dress similar to the famous commercial that Jennifer Hudson did for Weight Watchers recently. From the looks of it Weight Watchers is falling back to the old “sex sells” technique with a twist. The idea being that guys won’t be interested in the program unless there is an attractive woman to look at. His attractiveness aside I wonder what good this will do for guys that have struggled with weight and have largely been quiet about it.
Personally I’m turned off by the ad because its trying to speak to me on a “check out this hot woman” level that his been displeasing to me for a long time. Not only that but by having him try to take on the appearance of a woman I think the “hey that’s a guy like me using Weight Watchers” edge is lost. I can’t speak for all guys but ads like this don’t encourage me to join their program. All it did was swap out “Weight Watchers is for women” for “Guys look at this attractive woman, and join Weight Watchers while you’re at it.”
Speaking from the perspective of one man among many, the original ad did a much better part of inspiring me to do something about my weight than this new one.
What do you think? Which ad do you think is most effective?
haha that’s pretty funny. I’m not sure it’s going to convince more men to lose weight, but it’s funny.
Why is this ad a problem? It’s just Chuck being Chuck.. it’s funny. No need for cynicsm in this
This is one of those moments when I have NO idea what the message is supposed to be. Only women want to lose weight? If you don’t lose weight you’ll look like a fat woman? Men can join WW and eat “man food” (as if women don’t like pizza and steak, heyo!!! I love that stuff), men in bad drag are funny? It’s like they had no idea for a concept and then were like, hey let’s make him look like Jennifer Hudson! That’ll be hilarious! Except… is it? And Bad Man, maybe? But men in bad drag? It’s usually… Read more »
Yeah, is it making fun of WW? Is it making fun of dieting? Is it saying, I”m such a strong bad ass man that I can do WW and wear a dress and still be more manly than you? Ugh. Concept fail.
Well Julie I would say that between him saying, “If this is what it takes to get your attention guys…” (or something like that) and, “My eyes are up here guys…” (or something like that) I firmly believe that the concept of this ad was to have him Barkley in a dress in order to put a twist on the “sex sells” idea but use the “But I can still eat man food…” (or something like that) to tell guys that they don’t have to eat “like a woman” to lose weight. Or at least that is what I get… Read more »
WTH? The dress is marketing to women by making fun of men.