Using sex to sell safety – good clean fun – or offensive?
Which one of these photos from an emergency shower advertisement is more offensive – or both equally or neither?
In the excellent Safety Blog: http://safetyatworkblog.wordpress.com/ the author posses the question of whether using sex to sell safety is appropriate or offensive. See the two blog posts here: WOMEN MAN
The background is that a company, Spill Station Australia, (Who make some very good gear that we have purchased in the past and been very happy with) used the image on the left in a marketing brochure and allegedly had scantily clad women at their stall at the Safety Show. Following complaints (not sure how many), they now use the photo of the male but the switch to the male photo may not have been due to the complaints??.
The responses to the original blog posts are mostly supportive of using a little sex to sell safety and that perhaps political correctness is out of control. What do you think? Have we got more important safety issues to worry about?
We wrote about a similar attempt to use sex to promote safety here: https://safetyrisk.net/2011/05/16/a-different-way-to-promote-safety If you are offended by the photos above then please do not click on this link.
Do you have any thoughts? Please share them below