Women in Geek Advertising

There's a lot of crazy shit out there, it's true. Lots of images of women (and men - you've seen those bulging Calvin bus ads) that are sexy, objectionable, and funny at the same time. I'm not suggesting that there's a cure for the phenomenon of sex-as-advertising... but for a rack-mounted server? 

I guess we'd have to start with the Freudian implications of a geek deciding to call his new invention "rack mounted" but that's too much work. Let's just collectively make fun of them for putting a busty secretary in the ad, and hope that eventually, people will realize that advertising with status-quo babes is so over. 

I buy hardware/games/geektoys too. I'd like to see them advertised by a charmingly disaffected somewhat-disrobed Dave Grohl, lounging-with-low-lighting Mos Def, or the ever-exuberant cast of Cabaret. Hell. I'd settle for Tiger Woods. 

Here are the print ads that previously composed my office-door collection. Ads for Russian brides and so on have been removed. Next up: the gaming press. 

Got a good(bad) one? Send ads to: hunicke@cs.northwestern.edu

 

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Starting things off with a bang - here's one of the greatest puns ever designed to sell hardware. The second ad, which is actually for some kind of direct-media thing, was too sexy for my door. That girl is hot, I admit it. It made me feel shameful and very backlash to wonder continually what her nipples looked like. I think she's the one that pushed the door "over the edge" into uncomfortable-for-girls land, prompting the gallery's move to cyberspace.
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When I was scanning this stuff in, one of the office gals remarked on the porno-sauna action of the Melissa Data ad. Do you think she's wearing a data-rich towel? And really, nothing says web-hosting quite like a girl in a halter top and work boots. Props to Lara Croft, yo. From your peeps at BG.  
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I saw a print version of the Aladin ad that read something like "You built her, we'll make them pay to get in." The back of this post card (sent to everyone attending the Game Developers Conference 2002) read "Make Them Pay." The lips lady always draws the most negative comments. And really - what if we want a *male* server? What's the ship date on the cabana boy model?
 

*I can't remember where this is from, but it was my desktop icon for a long time.