Nurses convince Gillette to pull "lusty-nurse fever" TV ad

For immediate release
October 4, 2005

Contact:
Sandy Summers 410-323-1100
or 443-253-3738
ssummers@nursingadvocacy.org

October 4, 2005 -- Yesterday the Gillette Company agreed to pull a television ad for TAG Body Spray, in response to a Center for Nursing Advocacy campaign. The ad featured a provocatively dressed "nurse" who developed "highly contagious lusty-nurse fever" because of the product and climbed into bed with the stunned male patient wearing it. (Click here to see the ad in Quicktime.)

Gillette acted after more than 600 nurses and supporters across the US and Canada wrote letters protesting the ad's perpetuation of what the Center called "the enduring naughty nurse stereotype." Center executive director Sandy Summers said that she was pleased that the ad would soon leave the airwaves. But she noted that it will still have reached millions of viewers.

"We are concerned about the lingering effect," Summers said. "When people think of nursing even partly as a bad sex joke, it undermines efforts to convince decision makers to fully fund clinical practice, education and research. This makes it harder for nurses to save lives and improve patient outcomes, and exacerbates the nursing shortage, which is taking lives worldwide." Summers pointed to research showing that many youngsters still consider nursing a technical job for women, rather than a vital modern profession.

The Center has asked Gillette to make amends for the damaging ad by taking steps to educate the public about nursing. It proposes that the consumer products giant create an ad with a positive portrayal of nurses or fund a nursing scholarship program. So far, the company has declined to take any such measures.

The Center for Nursing Advocacy, founded in 2001, is an international non-profit that seeks to increase public understanding of the central, front-line role nurses play in modern health care. The focus of the Center is to promote more accurate, balanced and frequent media portrayals of nurses and increase the media's use of nurses as expert sources.

The following are among those who sit on the Center's Board of Directors or Advisory Panel:

Diana J. Mason, PhD, RN, FAAN, Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Nursing;

Claire Fagin, PhD, RN, FAAN, Dean Emerita, Professor Emerita, University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing;

Pam Maraldo, PhD, RN, President, PJM Associates, former CEO, National League for Nursing

Beatrice Kalisch, PhD, RN, FAAN, Titus Distinguished Professor of Nursing, Division Director, Nursing Business and Health Systems, University of Michigan School of Nursing;

Nancy Dickenson-Hazard, MSN, RN, Chief Executive Officer, Sigma Theta Tau Honor Society of Nursing;

Maryann Fralic, DrPH, RN, Professor of Nursing, Director Corporate Relations, Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing;

Linda C. Pugh, PhD, R.N.C., FAAN, Associate Professor, Director, Baccalaureate Program, Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing;

Colonel Dena A. Norton (Ret.), MSN, RN, Administrator, Cenla Nursing Workforce Coalition, The Rapides Foundation; Retired Colonel and Former Director of Health Care Recruiting, HQ, US Army Recruiting Command;

Journalists Bernice Buresh and Suzanne Gordon--co-authors of From Silence to Voice: What Nurses Know and Must Communicate to the Public.

For more information contact:

Sandy Summers, RN, MSN, MPH
Executive Director, The Center for Nursing Advocacy
Adjunct Faculty, Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing
203 Churchwardens Rd.
Baltimore, MD USA 21212-2937
office 1-410-323-1100
fax 1-443-705-0260
cell 1-443-253-3738
ssummers@nursingadvocacy.org
www.nursingadvocacy.org