Lobo Louie might be in the doghouse after his apparent fling with a pin-up girl from Route 66 Casino.
The pair performed in two commercials released about a month ago, and Lobo Lucy isn’t the only one upset about it.
The ads, filmed in partnership with UNM’s exclusive gaming sponsor, depicts the casino’s billboard beauty in a cherry “Lobos” midriff top, skimpy spandex shorts and bright red stilettos.
In one ad, the camera focuses on the woman bent over with her cleavage showing while she blows a kiss in the mirror. A smoke alarm goes off, and the woman walks in to find Lobo Louie grilling in the living room. The University mascot then pants at her as he offers her a hot dog.
“Why is it suggestive?” said Kurt Esser, associate director of External Affairs and Athletics Marketing. “What it means is he was tailgating. There could be innuendo in about anything.”
Esser categorically denied that the advertisement is suggestive. He said the University is proud of the ad campaign.
All the same, Athletics Director Paul Krebs apologized for the advertisements to members of the Faculty Senate, according to Faculty Senate President-elect Richard Wood.
Wood, who is a father as well as a faculty member, said the University should not be endorsing such a provocative message.
“I think it reflects very poorly, and I’m not prudish about such things,” Wood said in an e-mail. “The human body is a wonderfully beautiful part of creation, but this ad presents this young woman as nothing but a sexualized image. That kind of caricature just fails to do justice to women’s talents.”
In a joint statement released to the Daily Lobo, President David Schmidly and Krebs apologized to the Lobo community and fans.
“We at the University of New Mexico and the UNM Athletic Department deeply regret any offense taken or discomfort felt by anyone seeing some new advertisements that feature the Lobo mascot,” the statement read. “We appreciate the support of our athletic department sponsors, and taking the concerns we heard to heart, Lobo Athletics worked with the sponsor to revise the ads in question.”
Several bloggers on Topix.com had a hearty discussion about the advertisement, and Esser said he’s gotten four e-mails and two phone calls about it.
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Before the ad was approved to air, Route 66 representatives asked Esser, Krebs and women’s soccer head coach Kit Vela to review the tape. Esser said that they asked the casino to tone down the ad, and they obliged. Esser didn’t say what was taken out of the original commercial.
Wood said his wife was concerned about the message the commercial sends to young women and their parents.
“She said, ‘I know UNM wants to recruit bright, prepared students. But if they think I’m going to send my daughter to a place that sees young women like this, they’re crazy,’” Wood said. “I feel similarly, though I do know this is not the way the University, at its core, sees young women. Most disturbing to me is that someone thought it was cute and fun.”
Esser said the young woman in the ad is dressed like a 20-year-old fan, but he couldn’t recall a particular game where he’d seen her.
“That’s not really the point,” he said. “Anything can be considered dirty. The intent was not to show lewd behavior.”
John Benavidez, a part-time faculty member in the Anderson School of Management who specializes in marketing and advertisement, said the ad has sexual undertones.
“Everything from the music to the presentation of the hot dog, I think it wraps it up with throwing ice on Louie — I thought that was interesting. It’s definitely suggestive,” he said. “Why throw the ice on Louie at the end? Why not throw the ice on the grill that’s on fire? The suggestion is that he’s hot-to-trotting.”
Lascivious or not, Senior UNM student Patrick Friedman Schaffer, 23, said the way the woman is dressed in the commercial is not how fans dress at Lobo football games.
“It’s not a really good representation of girls I would see at the games,” he said.
“Definitely no high heels.”
UNM student Danielle Borunda, 22, agreed.
“That was a bad statement on their part,” she said. “There’s a large majority of girls that do not dress like that and find it offensive when other girls dress like that. Now that I look at it again, I see it as a little bit more against women than what I originally thought. I thought they were a little bit more risqué than the University would like to portray themselves.”
Schaffer said that the commercial is less than tactful and “a little intense.”
“There’s little for the mind to uncover,” he said. “If the kids are seeing that, they might get the wrong picture.”
Esser said that Lobo Louie doesn’t target children, though the mascot interacts mostly with children at UNM functions.
Esser said the ad is meant to be straightforward.
“There’s no denying that many people feel (the woman) is attractive, and maybe she showed too much body,” he said. “That’s the extent of the concern. The story is someone trying to tailgate inside. That’s it. If you watch cartoons from 20 years ago — old Bugs Bunny ads — they say things that adults get that kids do not.”
Esser said it’s difficult for the University to anticipate everyone’s reaction to an advertisement.
“What some people feel is inappropriate, others don’t,” he said. “We can’t judge everything. It’s just like every other political issue that comes on our campus.
Some people agree with it, some people don’t.”
*See the ads at
www.Rt66LoboLoco.com*
