Yet again this week the planned Ranty Friday gets binned and a replacement hastily bashed out in a rage. A RAGE. This time over a tweet that I saw last night, from, of all places, Harrods. Yes, that Harrods. They tweeted the following:
And linked to a picture of the three products above.
I am stunned. I am disgusted. I am appalled. Who the hell has come up with a product called “Fat Girl”? How on earth can several development meetings attended by several marketing executives agree that this was a good idea?
Who is going to buy it? I can assure you that, as a fat girl, it won’t be me. There is no way on earth I would go into a cosmetics department and pick these up. I might as well get a big neon arrow above my head that follows me flashing “lard arse” as I leave the store.
And can you imagine a slimmer woman buying them? Why would she?
Can you see somebody buying this as a present for their loved one or best friend? Can you imagine opening that package? I can assure you dear reader that if somebody bought this for me I would be throwing it at their head.
But all joking aside I am just plain appalled. I hate this. Truly. I am disappointed that Harrods tweets about this saying “the gym in a jar”. Does this mean that I can apply this to my face with one hand, whilst eating a biscuit with the other and get a six pack by Christmas? Of course it bloody doesn’t. It isn’t a gym in a jar. There is no such thing and to suggest there is is misleading.
Buy that though and you might think you could. Last time I talked to a fitness instructor (contrary to popular opinion I do know what a gym instructor is) the only way to get a six pack was hard work in the gym.
Of course this is not a gym in a jar. To market this product as such is wrong. Misleading and wrong.
The “Fat Girl Slim” claims
Bliss Fatgirlslim is a lean, mean body firming cream to target less-than-perfect parts from head-to-toe.
Really? Well a 6oz jar is not going to do that any time soon. I can assure you that even if we filled our hot tub with it and I sat in it for a month it would not make me any slimmer.
The Fat Girl Sleep claims:
Bliss Fatgirlsleep is a night time version of our award-winning Fatgirlslim firming cream that helps firm skin and slenderise while you sleep
Again. A 6oz jar and they reckon that can slenderise me in my sleep? Really? I would like to see their proof of that. In fact I might report them to the ASA myself. How can a cream applied to the skin make you slimmer? Yes they say it can make it “appear that water retained in skin layers is reduced” but that isnt actually making somebody slimmer is it? Is it? Am I missing something here? Do I need to fill the hot tub and sleep in it every night?
The fact that Bliss Spa have decided to call these products Fat Girl I think is horrid. The fact they are suggesting that fat girls want to be slimmed down with a cream that probably really wont make them demonstrably slimmer saddens me. And the idea of a company maybe thinking “I know how we can get money off the fat birds. Let’s make a cream JUST for them. Let’s even name it after them and let them think they can be slim and lovely with this product” really really saddens me.
I truly think that marketing something so derogatory is reprehensible.
UPDATE
Having posted this at 6.30am I had a reply from Bliss on Twitter at 8.30am. This is their response:
Comic?
Racy?
Goofy?
Are they for real?! I am now even more exasperated. An “off limits” conversation. About what? Marketing to gullible women who think that they can get a six pack by applying a £35 cream to their stomachs?
A conversation about how laughable it is that “fat girls” want to be slim. Maybe they don’t. Maybe they are happy being fat.
Their claims are that you can be slimmer and have a six pack by using these products. I strongly dispute that.
Everything about this product depresses me, not just the Fat Girl tag but their claims too. It’s just a horrible piece of marketing. And the response from Bliss has made it even worse.
* * * * * *
Ranty Friday is a weekly linky for bloggers to join up with a rant of their own, either recent or one from the archives. Do go and visit the other blogs!
Oh my goodness, I’m beyond words at the stupidity of these products. Seems like an early April Fools PR stunt gone wrong, as surely no self respecting company would think these were a good idea!
I can’t imagine why anyone would even come up with products like this! So irresponsible!
It’s yet another dig at fat people by the beautiful, I’m sure that perfect size 10s will buy this and snigger and pinch a minuscule piece of skin and smirk as if to say “oh I’m so fat”. It’s vile, it’s also ridiculous to call something a gym in a jar. Just how gullible have women become for the quick fix…
Someone took the irony meter too far – beyond stupid !!
Oh my god it is actually real! Why would someone do this – I am sure there are people that would fall for it too
Agree with everything you say. Not exactly an ‘aspirational’ product!
Though they did get you talking about it, even if not in a good way. They may just think… No publicity is bad publicity. (Until, that is, they look at the sales figures – unless they’re aiming for the online market of course, and deliver wrapped in plain packaging)
I can’t believe that this is real. That it is actually A Thing. Dreadful.
Really? That’s hideous! Lies as well as insults – well done Harrods!!
Utterly appalling. I bet it’s horribly expensive too! Can we all report them to the ASA!!
Oh my!!! I truly have no words for this, we won’t go into Harrods already but if this is the marketing style then I’m sorry, girls suffer enough through media with the expections of being slim to the extreme that they don’t need to see things like that on the shop floor and those who struggle with weight issues will struggle all the more x
I would think the only thing this will slim down is your bank balance.
Words fail me. I can’t add anything to what you have already said. But just wrong on so many levels.
I feel sorry for the vulnerable people who see this product and yet again, feel ashamed of their own body image. This kind of ridiculous and thoughtless marketing only adds the the overwhelming pressure that women and young girls are already under to be the ‘perfect’ size.
So many women go in shops like Harrods already feeling paranoid about the way they look (I know department stores make me feel that way) and they are putting these products on show to show us ‘fat girls’ that we are even more different and need help like there is something wrong with being bigger. Then what about girls with eating disorders etc desperate for anything to make them thinner who would be likely to put their hopes into these products, that doesn’t sound ‘funny’ to me!
Wow, douche move. That’s not goofy, that’s just shit.
Not good. Reeeeally not good. And trying to brush it off as a jokey way of dealing with an ‘off limits’ product? Even worse.
Stupid marketing and shame on you Harrods!
As a Fat Girl I find this most offensive as the implication is that I need to change. If it were Fat Girl cakes, I would find it less insulting I think. If I want a six pack, I will draw one on with pen, which would be about as convincing as a magic gel I should imagine!
‘Twitter will light up like Broadway!’ said one hispter adboy to another. ‘They’ll love it or hate it but they’ll all want to try it!’ he replied.
Ummm. Nope. Got that one wrong then.
I’ve got 3 teenage girls and I know full well that they wouldn’t buy it themselves, I wouldn’t buy it for them, the people who’ll buy this are teenage girls for other teenage girls – who will laugh in public and then cry in private. Teenage girls are the biggest bitches on the planet and they’ll use this to ‘put down’ other teenagers under the guise of being nice. It’s just nasty.
This. Exactly this. It feeds a very unhealthy body image and represents everythign I hate the beauty industry sometimes
I agree, what a VERY strange name to pick?!
Amazing! Seven Christmas presents sorted at once! – Oh Happy Day.
Can’t we think of a new name for Harrods? Faggots? Buttocks? B****cks?
Oh Jim that actually made me laugh out loud.
Harrods should be reported to the ASA – they just can’t make false claims like that. Gym in a jar, my arse!
I have indeed reported Bliss Spa UK to the ASA. For exactly that reason. It is misleading and false advertising isnt it?
What a pathetic name. I would actively avoid a product if the name annoyed me like that, and I will be doing so!! 😀
I am surprised this wasn’t picked up six years ago when the range started.
I thought perhaps it was something to do with Fat Boy Slim the DJ but can’t see any relevance whatsoever and he probably would / could / should have an issue with the inferred association. Regardless of this, I can’t believe it wasn’t shot down in the initial stupid brainstorming session and every stage thereafter. Must be a joke. A horrible one that has backfired. And Fat Boy Slim should sue ’em.
I am speechless … which is kind of unusual for me! Actually without ability to speak, I am in so much shock.
oh my woolly word this is outrageous Tanya and i totally agree with you rant. who si this product aimed at because as you say it would offend if given as a gift and who would buy a product called Fat Girl??? unbelievable xx
Ok, so I used to live on the French Riviera, where I went to the beach at least once a week from March to October every year. And despite being a size 10 I had, and still have, cellulite, and nothing I do gets rid of it (I do all the stuff you’re meant to do and nothing works, it’s just one of those things). Then one day I heard about this miracle cellulite cream through several expat friends in France. I clicked online and discovered Fat Girl Sleep, I think I retched at the name and the implication, but I desperately wanted to be shot of my cellulite, so I ordered it online from the UK, to be sent to my home in Nice. And I used it. Religiously. And you know what? Nothing happened. There was zero change to my orange peel. But I was too embarrassed to do anything about it or to complain, so I did nothing, but I also bought no more cellulite creams. Fast forward a few more years, I’m older, possibly wiser, and living in London where no one except Hubs gets to see my wrinkly thighs for 50 weeks of the year, so I don’t care now. However my eldest daughter is now 7 years old and I HATE this product and I dislike myself for buying it and giving them money for something so wrong.
This makes me so sad. The idea that you, lovely, person were duped. And that it did nothing other than diminish your bank balance. And is exactly why I have reported them to the Advertising Standards Authority.
I hate the idea of this product name – even if I managed to understand the fact that the name is a ‘comic and goofy’ name, I’m sure that my 11 year old daughter won’t. I don’t want her seeing things like this at an age where children struggle with body image!
Oh isn’t that ridiculous! Fat girl slim… Well that will take work. Lots of it and no creams involved. Horrid marketing plan!
E aged 5 has been teased at school, another child also aged 5 has told her that her Mummy is going to die because “she is so fat”. It took me days to drag out what had upset her. We don’t use the word FAT in our house, it is an ugly miserable word. Strangely enough that is how I felt when she eventually told me why she had been so upset. I felt ugly and miserable, I hated myself for being the cause of E’S misery. I’ve joined a gym, I’m eating less and I have signed up to The Grim and The Colour Run.
The sad thing is the comment has actually originated from a parent.
This product range has been around for years and is a play on words for fatboyslim – its old news to be honest and not really worth this rant
Thanks for your comment.
I know its a play on words. Fat Boy Slim however is musician. He is not marketing face cream.
And with respect, I don’t care if it is old news. The tweet I saw was last Thursday and this is my blog so I can rant about whatever I like, thanks.
Saw this on the cruise ship, I immediately thought of ranty friday! xx
I know that this post is over a year old but I just saw it today in my search to comprehend why anyone would purchase such a product or why a company would market a product in such mmanner. You basically covered everything that I was thinking and thank you for saying it.
Thanks so much for the comment, even a year on this subject still makes me rage!