TV commercial for a women's razor: "Mow the lawn!"

This UK TV commercial for the Wilkinson Sword Quattro for Women Bikini razor would probably stir up some serious controversy in the US. I think it's catchy and memorable. Wilkinson Sword: Mow the Lawn (Creativity Online, thanks Zoë Korstvedt!)

David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

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Anonymous

There is a US version (of the product) and I’ve seen the commercial for it once but there was no catchy diddy.
Dedalus

what kind of treasure is it really…. if you dont have to fight ur way through the jungle to find it?

lmfao
dewexdewex

Very funny: two lips on the mound, indeed.

Could do without the american styley styley, though: we do have a culture of our own in the UK, thanks.
sixfngers

tulips on the mound

hilarious
muteboy

I like the way the word “creativity” has been absorbed by marketing people. Gives me a warm feeling.
Anonymous

actually they do have a version of this ad here in the USA. My friend and I thought it was hilarious.
El Stinko

I’d say the clever and racy idea is undermined by sloppy execution. A little too much *wink* *wink* *nudge* *nudge* GET IT? HUH? GET IT? for me. And that song should have been better.

So there. Is that enough bah-humbug for ya?
Anonymous

I’ve seen this commercial in the U.S. I don’t recall what station aired it, but I live in NYC. It was likely the Food Network or something my girlfriend was watching. Perhaps even USA or TNT?
Brainspore

Interesting that they named something designed to be used on your nether regions after a weapon used to slice and stab people to death. Why not just rub some “Nair Napalm Body Burn” on the area?
veebay

Oh, but it is showing in the US. Schick Quattro Trim Style had a commercial on tv last night. More subliminal, perhaps, but the manicured bushes were there in all their glory.
PunkWalrus

They have a US version of this ad, but show women passing by various bushes which suddenly “trim themselves.”

http://www.quattroforwomen.com/media_trimstyle.php
Blinde Schildpad

I feel this Dutch ad would beat it in offending US sensibilities. It’s got drugs, cussin’, racial stereotyping and pizza:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpWxuqO5sYQ

And it’s on daytime TV! If only their pizza’s weren’t so damn fucking awful…
tuckels

I rember an ad that played here in Australia not too long ago. It was for tampons and involved a woman carrying around and caring for a beaver.
lncnmark8

The U.S. version of this same ad campaign is pretty subtle, (especially compared to this one.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAk77Kr_OwQ

It doesn’t scream the idea like the U.K. one, but it’s still a little surprising to see something like this in a commercial. It’s an interesting trend towards less prudish American advertising. I’m ok with that, I just want to stop hearing male enhancement supplement commercials while sitting next to my dad! Hahaha!
Cassandra

JJasper @ 51:

Cassandra @ 42 – I dunno if just posting a link with a “hey this was nifty” counts as actively encouraging people to think about feminism.

Yes, I think you have a point. I realized after reading your comment that I was already the kind of person who might think about feminism at breakfast more often than not, and there was nothing inherently drawing attention to feminism either in the commercial or in the text-blurb serving as its introduction–what feminism I saw was in people’s commentary, and that was coming from them, or at most, their reaction to the commercial.

I need to think more on this.

I do think that boingboing is an interesting resource for bringing to light information about about gender/sexuality where it intersects with pop culture or freedom of speech, but…
Captain Squiffy

My kid’s band is gonna cover that song.

Squiff
deckard68

How do we not know that this might be for exotic shapes of armpit hair?
ST

Don’t do it! I’m SICK of little girl smooth shaved bits (or worse, “artfully” shaved shapes that look like all of the other artfully shaved women out there).

Neatly trimmed. Fine. Touch up the scraggley edges. Go for it. But quit shaving the whole damn thing and quit it with the cute shapes. It is sexy like it is… making it look like it did when you were 6 years old is just creepy.
blueworld

Trying to trim a specific shape with a three or four bladed razor is like trying to shape your goatee with one. To get clean edges you need a single blade.
rrh

Brainspore: The company’s name is Wilkinson Sword. It’s an old company; they diversified when demand for their original product declined.
kpshea

Creativity is being substituted for sexism here. All of us slobby guys are running around expecting the lady folk to stay trimmed and presentable.

I’d be very surprised to see any sort of ad campaign for manscaping. What a double standard.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  I’d be very surprised to see any sort of ad campaign for manscaping.
  
  Are you on Mars? Do you not know about the ‘optical inch’?
  
  http://www.shaveeverywhere.com/
memoi2001

not as explicit as the french version:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8mu70_ma-garden-party_music
Hawley

#10

i think you should lose your virginity before commanding the nations female population on their hygienic habits.
grimc

@#2

I like the way you suggest “creativity” can only be used by certain people.
mellowknees

#13 – I would LOVE to see such an ad campaign. Trimmed man-parts are a lot more fun to…uh…I probably should stop typing now.
Teller

The problem with ‘carrying around a little beaver’ and ‘bushes trimming themselves’ is they sound like ideas hatched by 26yo copylads who’d rather be working on Axe deodorant or Jackass 2.75.
dragonfrog

Looking at their legs in the shot above, I can’t believe those ladies can be healthy.

Isn’t the UK supposed to have some kind of law against hiring the desperately anorexic for modelling work?
Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Community Manager

Hawley @17, the comment you were referring to may have been off-topic, but your response was excessively personal.
grimc

@kpshea

I’d be very surprised to see any sort of ad campaign for manscaping. What a double standard.

Hold on to your monocle:

http://www.shaveeverywhere.com/

And this is a sample from the product launch campaign a few years ago. There were huge billboards all over Manhattan when it ran.
dannybolabo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkkTeAP8d5o

This ad just came out in NZ.
Brock

16: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmyKOY5IidA
botulf2000

While talking about “manscaping”, this has even been a TED-talk about the dangers of local warming/the benefits of manscaping:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/yossi_vardi_fights_local_warming.html
Anonymous

I was so glad to see that this commercial was posted here (with smart comments), I was just traumatized by seeing the comments on the digg submission of the same video.

http://digg.com/health/A_Girl_s_Gotta_Trim_the_Hedges_Hilarious_Schick_Commercial
Gilgongo

This isn’t a UK TV commercial, nor has it ever run in the UK. Still funny though.
Shukketsushi

When i first saw this i thought “this is stupid” but the second time around i figured it out and wow i dont need to know what lil design a woman is gunna shave on her vag
Anonymous

@ 39- wow. Those French women are HOT. Damn. I should have learned French instead of Japanese!

@ everyone- why is shaving there “mysognistic”? What if women LIKE it clean? Would manscaping, then, be “chavinistic”? Why can’t people just shave things based on what their partner prefers, without it becoming a women’s rights issue?
Cranky old woman

Cute, but I gave up shaving at all, I just braid now.
Quaternion

April 2nd: I watch this video on BoingBoing and laugh like hell.

April 4th: I get an email from a blonde-haired college friend, “Hey check out this new razor commercial I’m in.” OMG. She’s the tulips on the mound lady!
Brainspore

@ #15 posted by rrh:

Brainspore: The company’s name is Wilkinson Sword. It’s an old company; they diversified when demand for their original product declined.

Ah, that explains it then. Still, kind of weird that the company decided to keep the “Sword” in their name instead of just becoming “Wilkinson” after they diversified.
jjasper

I know it’s complaining about free ice cream, but can I take a moment to point out how sexist flavored BB Free Ice Cream is? You guys are loosing me here. And no, I don’t think you care (nor should you) if I just give up, but there is a larger blogopshere out there, and this sort of thing is getting y’all quite a reputation on places where people think about feminism on a regular basis.

Just FYI.
Tara McGinley

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6fyE1w2I6s&feature=player_embedded
Cassandra

JJasper @ 29:
…but there is a larger blogopshere out there, and this sort of thing is getting y’all quite a reputation on places where people think about feminism on a regular basis.

I can tell you that this commercial got me thinking about feminism in the first 20 minutes of my day, which doesn’t always happen. Some of the commenters seem to be thinking about the commodification of women’s bodies, which is valuable.

Is that commercial problematic? Sure. Are people realizing it? I think so. Should Boing Boing possibly point out when things are problematic? Probably more often. But it’s nice to see people realizing it for themselves, too.
basstoelpel

I’m glad that a lot of the comments here are pointing out how this commercial is not a wonderful thing but an immature and rather misogynist thing. Thanks a million, dear BB readers.
Mindpowered

@29 Have they reached the ‘m dsspntd n y bng bng phase yet?

If not, they should accelerate their obloquy.

“but an immature and rather misogynist thing”

That’s the UK for you.
Anonymous

@16: all of us sloppy men? i dunno, but but we can actually shave too you know.
misterfricative

The childish misogyny and the annexation of what was once a robust vulgarism are the least of the problems with this nauseating gobbet of artificial sweetener.

People, it’s the job of these ‘creatives’ to emotionally manipulate you into buying more shit that you absolutely don’t need, but the really disturbing thing about this patronizing, anodyne, soulless, commercial bullcrap is that so many of you guys seem to be lapping it up. Sad.

I will now go and lighten the fuck up.
Phikus

…And no one else seems to have noted that the central girl is playing with her pussy for most of the commercial? Subtlety indeed!
fnc

Subtlety works best when it’s subtle.
MarlboroTestMonkey7

“Some bushes are really big”
The Lizardman

Short version of a classic dirty joke that is somewhat relevant here:

A man and a woman are out to dinner and when the waiter brings the man his plate of pasta the man complains loudly that there is a hair in his pasta. As the waiter takes away the plate the woman whispers to him, ‘you didn’t mind some hair in your mouth last night’. The man responds, ‘yes but if I had found a piece of spaghetti in there I wouldn’t have eaten that either’.
Micah

I like how she goes from petting a furry cat at the beginning to a hairless pussy at the end.
ViolettVerq

Wonderful. I love the national diversity.

I’m a little bit sad that the British or the French version didn’t make it to Germany. We got a short version of the US version. And no zooms to the “best parts” of the razor or trimmer at the end.

http://www.bikini-rasierer.de/?jump=startseite

(Click on ‘TV-Spot’ on the left side.)
silliest

Gotta say, because this seems to be something too many people who should know better seem to get confused about: pointing something out is not the same as purposefully promoting it. You can actually wonder at something and not necessarily regard it positively.
jjasper

Cassandra @ 42 – I dunno if just posting a link with a “hey this was nifty” counts as actively encouraging people to think about feminism. It’s sort of a side effect of drawing in people who think about it ever. Just by being a popular blog, they get that. If I do something stupid and tasteless in a crowded space, someone will probably point it out. But that doesn’t make it important for me to do so in order to encourage discussion.
dross1260

Talk about not sending the wrong message. No one was wearing safety glasses!
And, yes the ad is offensive.