The Rhetoric of Puma

"At PUMA, we believe that our position as the creative leader in Sportlifestyle gives us the opportunity and the responsibility to contribute to a better world for the generations to come. A better world in our vision—PUMAVision—would be safer, more peaceful, and more creative than the world we know today. The 4Keys is the tool we have developed to help us stay true to PUMAVision, and we use it by constantly asking ourselves if we are being Fair, Honest, Positive, and Creative in everything we do. We believe that by staying true to our values, inspiring the passion and talent of our people, working in sustainable, innovative ways, and doing our best to be Fair, Honest, Positive, and Creative, we will keep on making the products our customers love, and at the same time bring that vision of a better world a little closer every day.

Through the programs of puma.safe (focusing on environmental and social issues), puma.peace (supporting global peace) and puma.creative (supporting artists and creative organizations), we are providing real and practical expressions of this vision and building for ourselves and our stakeholders, among other things, a more sustainable future."- The Puma website... seriously... see it here: here

Amazingly enough, Puma also says on this page that they describe themselves as fair, honest, creative, and positive. Now first of all, how are these ads- fair, honest, creative, and positive? While sex is something that should be all of these things, we have to ask ourselves at who's expense?

The woman in this advertisement is blatantly engaged in a sex act. Now, there should be no shame in this. The shame of this sex act is that they are using her submissive position of being on her knees with substance on her thigh to sell shoes. Sex, in my opinion, should be a little bit more respected. For far too long, women's bodies and submissiveness have been marketing tools to sell products. Naomi Wolf writes in the "Beauty Myth" that women have been stripped of their style and even their faces and are now presented as mere bodies. A body to painted by advertisers. Rhetorically, this image suggests that she is a body- used for a man's pleasure and to sell whatever product she is told to.

If you remove the Puma shoes, you could easily change her clothes to sell Gucci. Or you could put some jewelry on her wrists and fingers. You could change her puma bag and make it a Kate Spade bag. That is this sad thing about this image- is it is sadly not unique. How many ads can we name that have a woman in a similar position selling a product? Several.

From a rhetorical stand point, this image says to me as a woman, "you are disposable, you are objective, and you can never be too sexual." After all, this pose is not shocking. AND- how often are women told that their job is to satisfy a man. Well, it looks like she did her job. In her Puma shoes. Well done- she must be talented at modeling and sex. That is a honest, creative, and fair depiction of women, right? What about positive? Well- it's positive in the sense that she is seemingly liberated to do whatever she wants. BUT is she liberated enough that she can change this image of herself? Based on the advertising world past and present techniques, no.

I am boycotting Puma.