Kia Motors' New Target Audience: Pedophiles!
From member EJHill, I learn that an ad agency working on behalf of Kia Motors in Brazil thought that the perfect way to sell consumers on their new dual-zone air conditioning system would be by getting into the mind of pedophiles who sexualize young children.
I'm in no way joking.
And what's worse is that it was just awarded the Silver Press Lion at the prestigious Cannes Lion Awards that recognize the "best" in global advertising.
The ad has two columns. On the left, there are drawings of a young girl in elementary school getting help from her teacher. In the right column, the young girl's uniform shrinks and she becomes a buxom teen soliciting sex. So to all the pedophiles in the world who see young children as sexual objects to be violated, come on down to your nearest Kia dealership? I hear if you purchase a car you even get your own free pass out of jail!
Do ad agencies really need to normalize and celebrate what goes on in the heads of sexual perpetrators? This distorted perception is what leads to innocent victims being abused. Why in the world would a company choose to do this? Why in the world would they be rewarded?
Copyranter calls it "one of the sleaziest car ads ever" (you can see the ad there, if you so desire) and notes that it doesn't even publish the pedophile fantasy in the name of doing a good job of visualizing the benefits of dual climate control.
Kia has just tied its name and line of products with child sexual abuse. What I see, when I see "Kia" is "child sexual abuse" and "normalization of pedophilia."
And that means I could never ever put my children in a Kia automobile. I don't even want to see one on the street.
Great work, Kia. I hope that pedophile demographic keeps you afloat.
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Comments:
Re: Kia Motors' New Target Audience: Pedophiles!
That's a really disgusting ad. In all seriousness, I can't begin to understand who would see that ad and be more likely to buy a KIA.
May '10
Re: Kia Motors' New Target Audience: Pedophiles!
Leave it to the Cannes judges to find something award-winning in this sick, commercial fantasy.
I will never understand Europeans.
Re: Kia Motors' New Target Audience: Pedophiles!
Not believing something so awful could be true, I tried to find some other meaning than the teacher fantacizing about the little girl.
I couldn't.
I guess Woody Allen needs to drive too.
May '10
Re: Kia Motors' New Target Audience: Pedophiles!
I passed this on to Diane and Mollie because, well, if I posted it you'd probably think I made it up.
Even the folks at The Huffington Post think it's a bit much. Maybe universal condemnation means we aren't totally done yet.
Dec '10
Re: Kia Motors' New Target Audience: Pedophiles!
The ad's clear message: The dual-zone climate control in Kia cars can be set to saccharine on one side and pervert on the other.
Dec '10
Re: Kia Motors' New Target Audience: Pedophiles!
I dunno, maybe my mind isn't as perverted as I thought, 'cause I didn't immediately leap to pedophilia when I saw the ad.
It's obviously in bad taste, but I think the thought they were trying to convey is Cold on one side and Hot on the other.
Nobody should be aroused by the kiddie scene on the left side, thus it signifies Cold.
On the other hand, the schoolgirl seducing the teacher meme is known to males and anyone with even casual contact with porn, more or less world wide (in the porno version, the schoolgirl ends up being played by some gal in her 30's, but you get the drift).
I suspect that the ad guys basically thought Porno Meme = Hot, and went with it.
It's a bit of a leap to assume that they're endorsing pedophilia though.
Seems to me like some people here absolutely have hair triggers on their "Offense Meters" of late.
Everyone is outraged over one little thing or another.
News Flash folks, until we get the big "kill us in the next six months" stuff taken care of, making a big stink about petty crap like this is just rearranging deck chairs on a sinking ship (while your hair is on fire).
Prioritize, please.
Edited on June 24, 2011 at 11:55pmMay '10
Re: Kia Motors' New Target Audience: Pedophiles!
Manufacturers usually respond to outcries about things like this by throwing the ad agency under the bus. But in this case, can they really claim ignorance? It won a major award, after all. It must have run awhile ago, and attracted management's attention.
Oct '10
Re: Kia Motors' New Target Audience: Pedophiles!
I'm not sure why you include the "if you so desire" comment. I think it is important to know what we are talking about. Having seen the ad, it is beyond me why it should be given an award. It's not just creepy. It doesn't have any artistic or promotional merit. I don't know that I would call it a pedophilia thing. The teacher isn't pictured in, or imagining, a seductive encounter with a (the?) child. Perhaps he is imaging himself when he is older having an encounter with the little girl when she is older. Admittedly, that is sick enough given her age. What the award tells me is that some Europeans are so determined to be transgressive, that transgression has become an end deserving of recognition absent any other value. The ad tells me nothing other than that a lot of people are quite mentally disturbed if they are more inclined to buy a Kia because of it..
Re: Kia Motors' New Target Audience: Pedophiles!
CoolHand:
News Flash folks, until we get the big "kill us in the next six months" stuff taken care of, making a big stink about petty crap like this is just rearranging deck chairs on a sinking ship (while your hair is on fire).
Prioritize, please.
This would be a fantastic argument if we were in a zero-sum situation. But we're not. I care about both terrorism and the culture. I might prefer a president focus on one over the other but, to be honest, I'm going to focus on the latter. Because that's my job as a mother.
I tend to think people overreact to the threat of sex abuse from strangers, and I'm not easily offended, and this is disgusting enough to warrant a post.
I have young daughters and was just today purchasing the uniform for the older one. And I don't want society tolerating or embracing the idea that this child is, if looked at another way, a hot sex object ripe for violation by an adult male teacher.
Just that simple.
May '10
Re: Kia Motors' New Target Audience: Pedophiles!
CoolHand: News Flash folks, until we get the big "kill us in the next six months" stuff taken care of, making a big stink about petty crap like this is just rearranging deck chairs on a sinking ship (while your hair is on fire).
Prioritize, please. · Jun 24 at 2:51pm
Edited on Jun 24 at 02:55 pm
It's the "little stuff," CoolHand, that lays the foundation for existential problems. Kind of like the Broken Windows approach to crime control.
For the record, I wouldn't call this small potatoes. Nor would I suggest that Kia doesn't have the right to run the ad. In fact, I appreciate their doing so, because it allows me to more easily exercise my right to spend my money with another car manufacturer.
Re: Kia Motors' New Target Audience: Pedophiles!
Cool hand,
I tried that, but they weren't two different scenes. The teacher is asking the questions while looking at the little girl, but big girl is giving him the answers.
That's how he sees her.
Aug '10
Re: Kia Motors' New Target Audience: Pedophiles!
At what point does looking at these things and the traffic of such ideas make one think that the end must be near ? I am gobsmacked by the sexualization of children and the normalization of perversion ( or at least we were taught by everyone except Kevin Jennings) . Clicking through a Lucianne post about a swedish health service fiasco, the swedish newspaper, a mouseover popped up what appeared to the society page and these leering twentysomethings popped out at me. I clicked on the slideshow to see some cocktail party or nightclub opening and the darnedest collection of goodlooking people (they're swedes after all) acting as if they were all extras in Decameron or some traveling orgy of dysfunction.
Is this rigidity due to age or a refusal to let the other side drag us to the absolute bottom of morality with their chic depravity ?
As for KIA ? I know people in the automotive industry and they tell me that they're crummy cars anyway. The Korean cars look good, have about 10k of good first miles, and then- meh. Sort of like Cadillac sponsoring puffpieces about Mao. Having the Devil sponsor KIA, naive - yes, edgy - no !
Edited on June 25, 2011 at 12:17amJul '10
Re: Kia Motors' New Target Audience: Pedophiles!
Tommy De Seno:
I tried that, but they weren't two different scenes. The teacher is asking the questions while looking at the little girl, but big girl is giving him the answers.
That's how he sees her. · Jun 24 at 3:10pm
It's a demonstration of how a conversation could be "cold" on one hand and the same conversation could be "hot" on another.
But "big girl" is giving a different teacher the answers.
Apr '11
Re: Kia Motors' New Target Audience: Pedophiles!
I get what they are trying to say but they did such a poor job of demonstrating it, so what is left is sleezy pedophilia. What ever happen to the smart people?
Re: Kia Motors' New Target Audience: Pedophiles!
Jimmy Carter
Tommy De Seno:
I tried that, but they weren't two different scenes. The teacher is asking the questions while looking at the little girl, but big girl is giving him the answers.
That's how he sees her. · Jun 24 at 3:10pm
It's a demonstration of how a conversation could be "cold" on one hand and the same conversation could be "hot" on another.
But "big girl" is giving a different teacher the answers. · Jun 24 at 3:21pm
Then why is big girl still in little girl's uniform?
Jul '10
Re: Kia Motors' New Target Audience: Pedophiles!
Tommy De Seno
Then why is big girl still in little girl's uniform? · Jun 24 at 3:35pm
See Cool Hand's post.
Left side: cute Hello Kitty type artistry.
Right side: mature Dick Tracy type artistry.
Same conversation, two totally different scenes.
Edited on June 25, 2011 at 12:40amAug '10
Re: Kia Motors' New Target Audience: Pedophiles!
Nor did I, though I consider the ad stupid and in bad taste.
Teacher-student fantasies are common, after all, and they go both ways. In fact, I'd wager that the likelihood that a given student has a crush on a given teacher is far higher than the other way around.
The affection and gratitude a student feels towards a favorite teacher is not so hard to get confused with romantic attraction, especially when the student is a moody, hormonal adolescent... Not that I would know anything about what that's like.
Of course, it's one thing to be capable of a fantasy and another thing to indulge it.
Re: Kia Motors' New Target Audience: Pedophiles!
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
Teacher-student fantasies are common, after all, and they go both ways. In fact, I'd wager that the likelihood that a given student has a crush on a given teacher is far higher than the other way around.
The affection and gratitude a student feels towards a favorite teacher is not so hard to get confused with romantic attraction, especially when the student is a moody, hormonal adolescent... Not that I would know anything about what that's like.
Of course, it's one thing to be capable of a fantasy and another thing to indulge it. · Jun 24 at 3:49pm
But clearly the little isn't a moody, hormonal adolescent (not that it would make the ad business savvy or moral in any case). She's a very young girl.
So what's the fantasy?
Re: Kia Motors' New Target Audience: Pedophiles!
An additional link that may be of interest. Mary Eberstadt's How Pedophilia Lost Its Cool.
Aug '10
Re: Kia Motors' New Target Audience: Pedophiles!
But clearly the little isn't a moody, hormonal adolescent (not that it would make the ad business savvy or moral in any case). She's a very young girl. So what's the fantasy?
I'd say there's no fantasy on the LH side (corresponding to cool), and there is a fantasy on the RH side (corresponding to hot). The difference between hot and cool is illustrated by the presence or absence of fantasy.