Secret has been co-opting the idea of women’s empowerment to sell deodorant since 1956. That kind of empty messaging is nothing new, but their $5 million Super Bowl ad is the most glaring and expensive example of a brand trying to leverage gender equality in the most empty, meaningless way possible.
The ad, which premiered on social media a few days before the Super Bowl, has an innocuous enough premise, but its laughable execution makes it borderline offensive to women and football fans.
The spot opens during a pivotal moment in football game, as a stadium full of tense fans watch as the team’s kicker comes onto the field. In suspenseful slow motion, the ball gets kicked. People stare with open mouths as it sails through the air and finally through the goalpost. There is wild cheering, from everyone, until the shocking, sudden reveal. The kicker and holder take off their helmets to reveal that they are actually U.S. Women’s National Team soccer players Carli Lloyd and Crystal Dunn! What a shock! The crowd gasps! There is sudden, stunned silences. Women! Playing football!
Just look at these stunned faces.
After the shock dissipates, the crowd cheers again, recovering from their sexist assumptions that women can’t be as good as men at sports.
It’s a baffling, dumb, stupidly executed ad that doesn’t actually understand the landscape of women’s sports or the challenges women athletes face, and also doesn’t care to address them. The problem isn’t just that fans would be unaccepting of female athletes in traditionally male dominated sports until they reveal themselves to be capable, but all the structural challenges keeping women athletes in secondary roles.
According to a release from Secret, the ad aims to spotlight “fierce female athletes” and is about “defying conventional expectations and championing equal opportunities for women.”
Yet, Lloyd and Dunn are phenomenal athletes in their own right. Why not just highlight their incredible accomplishments rather than try to recontextualize their worth through the male dominated lens of football?
There’s a reason Secret chose Llloyd for the spot, considering she went viral last year for kicking a 55-yard field goal during an Eagles practice session. It was an incredible feat, and lead to speculation that Lloyd could potentially become the first female NFL player. It would be incredible if that happened, but it shouldn’t take that leap for women athletes to be valued.
Secret’s poorly executed ad just reframes the misconception that, to prove themselves worthy, women have to succeed in male spaces. That is not the definition of equality. Women deserve to succeed on their own merits and their own abilities and in their own spaces. That’s what Lloyd and Dunn have already done.
Secret’s bizarre tagline for the campaign doesn’t help either. They’ve used the hashtag #KickInequality, but what does that even mean? Kick it where? To the curb? Out the door? Off the field? No idea. Down the road so another generation can deal with it?
In their press release for the ad, the deodorant company had plenty of platitudes about women’s empowerment and gender equality, but what they didn’t mention was any financial support for women’s athletes. Right now, women’s leagues are struggling for attention and funding. Just imagine how far that $5 million they spent on Super Bowl ad time could go.
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