The Portrayal Of Overweight People In Advertising

It's not often done with respect.

1. Vespa, New Zealand

Campaign for the GTS 300 Super, "the most powerful Vespa ever."

Astounding ads, really.

2. My Body Gym, Indonesia.

"Mommy?"

Very inspiring.

3. Marilia Light Dairy Products, Brazil.

Copy Translation: Goodbye Fat.

Uh, I don't think gun range target imagery is really the way to go.

4. Coopers Light Lager, Singapore.

Ad from a campaign that won a Bronze Lion at Cannes in 2008.

See guys, because it's light beer, you'll only have partial beer goggles.

5. Sportsplausch Wider Bikes, Switzerland.

Mountain biking over the fat of the land.

Nothing like shoving the slothiness of the sedentary right in their faces, Jesus.

6. Gold's Gym, Costa Rica.

Loose headline translation: "What you leave out of Facebook, put it into Gold's Gym."

7. VIP Medicum, an Estonian beauty clinic.

To hawk their suspect procedures, VIP paraded around zaftig and skinny look-a-likes in identical clothing to show "overweight" women the Utopian possibilities—a live, walking, smiling version of the type of Before/After ad you've seen forever in the back of women's magazines.

8. Obesity League of Belgium.

"1.5 million Belgians are obese or suffer from overweight" reads the clunky copy here, which has been translated for publicity purposes.

Not exactly an inspirational to the corpulent.

The visual, however, does quickly and simply communicate "fat dead person."

9. Gold's Gym, Costa Rica.

Ad from a Cannes award-winning campaign.

Copy: "It's About Time."

10. Del Mar Medical Spa, Bucharest, Romania.

Time to evolve, whale woman.

Very, very, very bad.

11. National Obesity Forum, UK.

"The eating habits you give your children can last a lifetime."

12. OxyGo Gym, Norway.

Yes, that old joke.

13. Weight Watchers, Germany.

14. German Olympics Sports Confederation.

Goliath would have ate him for dinner.

15. Pilates With Gerda, in Istanbul, Turkey.

Fat baggage.

Another ad from an award-winning (Gold at Europe's Epica Awards) campaign.

Nice Photoshop work, but such an obnoxious negative-sell isn't effective, IMHO.

16. Northern Bariatric Surgery Institute, Peckville, PA.

Horrible ad for "weight cutting."

17. Interbest Outdoor, The Netherlands.

"The sooner you advertise here, the better."

This stripping fat man billboard won a Gold CLIO.

18. Fit Light Yogurt, Brazil.

And here's the big loser campaign of the bunch.

Copy Translation: "Forget about it. Men's preference will never change."