Warner Bros. Fails 'Wonder Woman' Again With This Awful Product Placement

By Jamie Righetti | Think Pieces | May 4, 2017 |

By Jamie Righetti | Think Pieces | May 4, 2017 |

You ever encounter something so blatantly sexist you wonder if perhaps you’ve stepped into the TARDIS and landed in the past? Because that’s pretty much how I’m feeling after seeing the latest news regarding Warner Bros. decision to kick off a promotional placement for Wonder Woman with a brand called thinkThin. Seriously, is this an SNL spoof or something? And don’t you love how thin gets to be capitalized over think? I mean, priorities, right?

We’ve already bemoaned the lack of advertising for Wonder Woman, but now, with just under a month until the film’s release, the glaring lack of over-promotion has sparked a lot of debate over whether or not Warner Bros. is fully invested in the female-led film’s success. Which makes the partnership with a brand called thinkThin so much more tone-deaf and troubling.

According to the article, thinkThin is a female lifestyle brand which offers protein bars, smoothie mixes and other nutritional supplements. Michele Kesser, the president and Ceo of thinkThin had this to say about their partnership with Warner Bros. and Wonder Woman: “No one epitomizes the thinkThin lifestyle better than Wonder Woman, the iconic figure and female lead of a major superhero movie, and we’re excited to partner with Warner Bros. to extend the awareness of both brands.”

I, for one, can think of a lot of reasons why using Wonder Woman to market a brand that encourages women to “think thin” is a horrible idea, chief of them being that Diana has long represented female empowerment and championing women of all shapes and sizes. Wonder Woman has inspired women to find their inner strengths, to seek wisdom and to love yourself as you are. This isn’t to bash women who are thin, but Wonder Woman is certainly not a character who would tell women they must adhere to societal beauty standards which equate beauty (and therefore desirability) with being thin. And it’s choices like this that make me wonder if Warner Bros. even understand this property at all.

I could compare the choice to market Wonder Woman with thinkThin to The Guardians of the Galaxy Doritos endorsement but let me stick this closer to home. Twitter user Petty Ruxpin (@TASKvsTheWorld) recently kicked off a thread with the hashtag #PromoWonderWomanDidntGet, exploring the promotional differences between DC Universe’s properties.

Since people made a thread of the little promo Wonder Woman got imma make one comparing what the other films got. #PromoWonderWomanDidntGet

— Petty Ruxpin (@TASKvsTheWorld) April 30, 2017

It’s a thread worth exploring in full but it’s telling to see how Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and even Suicide Squad were given huge promotional endorsement - cereal, Doritos, a tattoo parlor, cars - and Wonder Woman has been quietly peddled on the side and picked up by a brand that seems to equate healthy with skinny. So, next time you see someone claiming Wonder Woman doesn’t need promotional help and that we’re all making a mountain out of a molehill, share this thread because Diana deserves better.