SwimMission Swim Cap Saga

To my knowledge, at least since spring 2023 until sometime this summer the following pop-up images encouraged visitors to an international swim brand's website to sign up to receive their newsletter. For reasons noted in earlier blog posts these images exclude representation of most people. Checking on the status of these images almost every month generated such disappointment for me that I stopped doing so earlier this year.  [a collage of 2 photos: top - a young woman wearing a 2-piece swimsuit while posing on a sandy beach dune; bottom - 6 people standing with their arms around each other's shoulders while looking down at the camera; both images placed next to text prompting people to sign up to receive the company's newsletter]  So seeing this new pop-up image during a random browse of their U.S. and international websites around August 20th surprised me.  [a young woman wearing a 1-piece swimsuit with long sleeves; googles pushed to her forehead; she's holding a pa...

If your hair factors into your decisions about learning to swim and/or to swim and participate in aquatics activities, what do you need and want in a swim cap?  https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScKo6CpDfwV2RF9rPTxyjVbveiFZiZdsuV1rOJESXk2EKkNAQ/viewform?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAaf93S72LXaNzqph30zKJR0LRNQApYpX4eR34cSBzgyGffTWIB4FXUiRgpLx0A_aem_mHyz9K6I9kAgdQ-nBtM6Aw&pli=1    Thanks for your time and your feedback! 

In the U.S. most of our clocks have sprung forward by one hour while marketing images for some major brands in the swim industry remain stuck many decades backward into the 1950s.  [a split image: top half shows a website homepage with a newsletter pop-up prompt of a young woman in a 2-piece swimsuit who's kneeling on the beach; bottom half shows a website homepage with a newsletter pop-up prompt of 6 young adults standing in a circle with their arms around each other's shoulders as they gaze down into the camera lens]  This company's brand is synonymous with swimming.  When the newsletter pop-up with the 6 models (who are not responsible for the exclusionary context in which it's being used) first came to my attention almost 2 years ago, here's what sprang to my mind: Tell me no one in your company recognizes (or cares?) that the imagery used to inspire engagement with the brand embodies the opposite of inclusion without saying a word.  That same newsletter sign-up...

  [three sentences: Humans swim. Black people are humans. Therefore, Black people swim.] 

  [a collage composed from 7 images of models in swimwear; top image with "NEW VIBE" across the center]  The lack of visual representation of a broad array of humanity in swimming and aquatics continues on this well-known brand's U.S. homepage in which the "new vibe" is the same old vibe. [sigh]   

Last July the pop-up image for a major swim brand's newsletter sign-up prompt on the homepage for their U.S. website caught my attention because it shows 6 young adults who appear nearly homogenous in age, physical fitness, body types, hair textures, and ethnicity.  My disappointment in seeing how many different kinds of people were  excluded from this image led me to check in on that website at least once per month (except October & November 2023 and March 2024).  Even if the homepage images during the 3 missed months featured a wide assortment of people of various ages, fitness levels, body types, hair textures, and ethnicities - as unlikely as that is, the majority of this swim brand's images during the past 15 months reveal a noticeable pattern of focusing on a very narrow portion of the population.       Their homepage images from February, May, and June 2024 generated my cautious hope for expanded inclusion even as the pop-up prompt remained ...