Assvertising

Previous entries in the Assvertising series include #85 and #94, both about Reebok's EasyTone Shoes, which are meant to improve the shape of women's asses while they walk in them. Now, the EasyTone features in an advert for its competitor, New Balance's TrueBalance, which purports to do the same thing, but with better technology.

The commercial, titled "Eyeline," is truly loathsome.

A blond, thin, young white woman is walking in a park wearing shoes that look like Reebok EasyTones. A dark-haired, thin, young white man is walking in the opposite direction toward her. She smiles flirtatiously at him; he can't stop looking at her goofy shoes with a bemused expression. Into his eyeline walks a pair of New Balance TrueBalance shoes; his gaze travels up the body until it arrives on the face of a dark-haired, thin, olive-complected woman, who smiles at him as she walks by.

Voiceover in female voice [as his gaze travels up her body from her shoes again, this time from the back, culminating in her glancing over his shoulder at him with a smug grin]: When toning your legs, glutes, and core, the last thing you want people looking at is your feet.

The blond woman looks back at the scene with a mixture of resentment and anger, as the man continues to stare at the dark-haired woman's ass.

Voiceover: Burn calories and activate muscles. The toning shoe that doesn't look like one. The TrueBalance toning collection, from New Balance.

The version I saw on television was a slightly longer spot, and actually showed the guy comparing the women's asses, and deciding, naturally, that the wearer of the TrueBalance shoes had the superior ass, in addition to the superior shoes. Ugh.

I'd love to know how this fits in with New Balance's Girl on the Run program, which asserts to "encourage pre-teen girls to develop self-respect and healthy lifestyles through running." Is marketing your product by reducing a woman to the value of her ass in the eyes of some random dude more about developing "self-respect" or a "healthy lifestyle," d'ya think...?

New Balance's corporate contact info can be found here.

[Assvertising: Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, Seventeen, Eighteen, Nineteen, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118.]