Advertising is overseen by teams of people. It would take a horribly dysfunctional work environment for at least one person not to venture “do you think this might be seen as a bit sexualised?”. Even if nobody pointed this out, a little girl in front of a vehicle with wheels turned to suggest motion is just unpleasant and seems confused at best.
But notice the attribution in the image – Audi Official. This is likely intended to be plausibly deniable, yet provocative enough to get shouted about. So, the Volkswagen/Audi Group will engage in sexualising children and racism (see last paragraph in the image below) to promote their cars?
One of the good things to have emerged from Internet advertising is that it exposed professional marketing as the insidiously manipulative industry that it is. In essence, the new Internet brigade were crap at it and, like a terrible magician trying to perform trick, laid bare the techniques for anyone paying enough attention to see.
Now the professionals seem to be copying the amateurs, or worse, frantically running to keep up – or ‘down’, as it were. Quite shameful in this case.
