The Svedka Vodka female robot ads are frequently seen in open – and not so open – air advertising galleries: billboards, buses, bus stop shelters, phone booths, and subway stations.
A common technique of liquor advertising is Pavlovian conditioning with the use of images of scantily-clad women as the primary stimulus. In close proximity to the affable young lady will be a picture of a bottle of an alcoholic beverage. In the same way that attention is drawn to the ad, the excitement will then link to the brand. Through this training, the consumer prefers a certain product.
Competition presents an immediate complication. How do you get men to look at your bikini girl poster in a public space filled with images of similar free spirits? One way that advertisers attempt to make the images increasingly interesting is by decreasing the clothing. The Cabana Cachaça magazine ad model’s high heels and a tan line demonstrate that there is a limit to this sequence. And in the interest of the safety of pedestrians – if not the public morals laws – outdoor advertisers must stop the display of skin at some point well before this reductio ad somethingorother is reached. Standing head and shoulders (and with nearly every other part of their gleaming anatomy) over all rivals, the Svedka bot girls are the solution to this problem. Since stainless steel women don’t wear clothes, nobody will be shocked by any amount of exposed sheet metal – but the idea comes through all the same.
There are other advantages, too. No one seems to mind a metal Ms. being treated as a sex object. After all, a robot is an object. And with metallic grey skin (plus just a hint of rouge or a blush signaling attraction) basically the same color as the Svedka bottle, the fembot is not just associated with the product. The feminine machine essentially is the goddess or spirit of the brand, dea ex machina.
I do see a drawback to the pinup girl liquor ads. Much marketing is based on either faulty polls or the faulty interpretation of polls. As their surveys show men making the overwhelming majority of alcoholic beverage purchases, the companies use “cheesecake” ads. The error is in failing to realize that men do what women tell them to do. If a wife or girlfriend sends a man to the liquor store to fetch a bottle of rum, gin, scotch, or wine, no landscape full of ruby-lipped robots will convince him to do anything else. And if is to be vodka and orange, how can a significant other be expected to invite Svedka?
stops at the margin, the unconscious will fill in the blanks.
