ChapStick Removes Ad That Objectified Women and Sexualized Lip Balm

How We Won

Oct 26, 2011

Chapstick has removed an offensive ad from their site and social media properties less than twenty-four hours after Change.org member Melissa Wardy started a petition calling on the company to do so. Over 200 Change.org members signed the petition before the company issued the following statement, "We see that not everyone likes our new ad, and please know that we certainly didn’t mean to offend anyone! Our fans and their voices are at the heart of our new advertising campaign, but we know we don’t always get it right. We’ve removed the image and will share a newer ad with our fans soon!"

ChapStick is a brand used by families, but their most current ad campaign "Where Do Lost ChapSticks Go?" prominently features the objectified buttocks and legs of a woman bending over a couch in what we are to assume is the search for her lost ChapStick. The suggestions this ad gives off desensitize and normalize the sexual objectification of women. This is never appropriate, and certainly not by a brand used by families. Viewers of this ad are forced to consume the woman, but only parts of her, as we never see her face or as a whole person.

ChapStick has a responsibility to show customers it can come up with clever advertisting that leaves customers engaged and not disrespectful to females. Ads are messages that help shape our perception of ourselves and our place in the world. Young girls and women should not be exposed to advertising from a family brand that uses headless, sexualized, super thin, silenced, submissive, sterotyped images of women. ChapStick can make the change to be more respectful.

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