Next stop on the worldwide sexist ad tour: Romania.
(click ads for closer look) Hey fat whale/cow women? Time for you to evolve! The Del Mar medical spa in Bucharest features "expert weight loss programs" and "proficient aesthetic medicine." But my question is: do they have any on-staff psychiatrists to thoroughly examine the heads of the idiots who approved these print ads (to be fair, there is a third one that shows a pig transforming into a buff man)? Yes these appear to be real ads (scheduled to run in October) done by a real ad agency promoting a real spa (note the detailed contact info). Amazingly, unbelievably insensitive. previous stops on the worldwide sexist ad tour:Germany—pre-owned BMWs ad; Singapore—Coopers premium light lager ads; Prague—Fernet herbal spirit TV spot; Italy—OXYDO sunglasses ad; Britain—Harvey Nichols women's shoes ad; Israel—Tzomet Sfarim book shops; and America—QSOL servers.
(click ad, via)
"You may side-step the tragedy that ovetakes so many wives..." Either get lookin' younger, wifey, or hubby's gonna get lookin' for a younger wife.
This is still the worst retro sexist ad ever.
And here's a round-up of seven retro sexist ads.
Slow-ass news day forces copyranter to cover Calgary condo ad controversy.
(click image) How cute, Cowtown has their very own little sexist ad flap (If you look up, way up, you might see the flap! Haha, shut-up.) Travis Gertz (pictured) and his wife found this ad for The Montana condo development offensive to women, reports the Calgary Herald. The creative director at the stupid agency that created the stupid ad responded: "It was meant to be tongue-in-cheek (ass cheek!). We knew it was racy, but it wasn't meant to offend anyone." OK then! Let's all now move on to other things in our lives. Previous stops on the sexist real estate ad tour: D.C.Chicago. And of course New York.
(click ad)
The ad, for non-alcoholic Budvar beer, won a Silver Drum at last week's Golden Drum Awards. It ran in mook mag Maxim, so proper targeting. Now, I know some of you less kneejerky dudes out there are going to say: "It's not sexist copyranter, it's celebrating women." Sure sure. The idea of beer goggles is not offensive. Go ask a woman.
Ad agency: Kaspen/Jung von Matt, Prague. Previously in sexist beer ads:
• Czech man wishes his wife was a sex doll.
• Offensive beer goggle ads via Singapore.
It's been well documented (if not well researched): At some point in the 1990s, Ad Dads very suddenly became moronic punchlines. I don't know who was more responsible for this—ad agencies or brands or Homer Simpson—but the tipping point was reached quickly. It was an anti-Mad Men ad movement. It was anti-creative. And it was just as sexist as all the Women As Sex Objects ads (though not as insidious).
The OG "Swagger" Dad
But in the last few years, there has been a shift in Dadvertising to Dad as Hero. That's fine. But, unfortunately, a subset of this new "Super Dad" ad concept has been the "Swagger Dad", popularized by comedian Brian Huskey in a lazy, hackneyed though widely applauded 2010 Toyota minivan ad. Like all such awkward-white-people-co-opting-black-culture ideas, it was insulting to the entire human race.
Swagger Dad #2
Now four years later Toyota, via their agency Saatchi & Saatchi Los Angeles, has finally released a "sequel" featuring "The Neuberts" (Christ). And since many criticized the first spot as racist, the world's leading auto manufacturer brought in Brooklyn boy Busta Rhymes to embarrass the fuck out of himself, hopefully for a very fat stack.
This video has all of the cringe and none of entertainment of the first Sienna ad. Four fucking years, and this is the best they could do. And I'm unemployed.
American Greetings—"Dad Life" (2010)
The world's largest greeting card company (That's one of the Whitest phrases I've ever typed.) apparently scoped the success of the Toyota video, and dropped their own awful anthem less than two months later, pre-Father's Day. Theirs featured four Swagger Dads, including a black dad to mute racism criticism. Dockers® and St. John's Bay shirts and John Deere riding mowers and Roundup weed killer get shout-outs, though it's not clear if any of that was prearranged. Note the douchey bluetooth.
"I gotta clip for my piece..." (cellphone holder)
Cheerios and their digital ad agency Tribal Worldwide also certainly noticed the 12 million views the original Swagger Dad ad racked up. They smartly avoided the shitty studio rap track, but this dude is still just another Swagger Dad telling you#HowToDad—which includes eating and feeding your children bowl after motherfuckin' bowl of peanut butter Cheerios for "breakfast, lunch, dinner, and midnight snacks". #HowToAngioplasty
Health concerns aside, this ad was just merely bad and unoriginal, until, yep: had to throw in those slo-mo fake gang signs at the end...ahh YEAH.
What recent Dad Ad do I like?
This one, for Jell-O pudding, by cp+b.
It's real. Yo.
(click ad, via) Special Russian (update: Bulgarian) promotion: for a limited time, for every case of Flirt empties you return to your local liquor store, you'll receive a free pair of knee pads. Seriously, what the hell, here? Can one of my socialist readers translate the copy, please? Ad was part of an adme.ru post "100 sexist advertisements" of recent years, a post that included the most obscene use of scrunchies ever in a print advert. Vodka brands are of course well known for employing overtly sexist imagery. See: Skyy, Svedka, Georgi, Belvedere, etc.
First our vote, then our jobs, then our liquor, then our remotes.
(click image, from 1912, via) Vintage Ads is currently conducting a sexist ad contest. In amongst the usual typing pool indignities and women driver jokes and housewife and beer scenarios, was posted this literally sexist ad. I'd like to know what the thinking was behind that math—"would double the irresponsible vote." Progress Publishing, indeed. The 19th Amendment didn't pass until eight years later.
All kinds of fetishes shoehorned into sleazy shoe ad.
(click ad) Previously, we've seen men's dress shoes as phallic symbols. This baby, however, takes the fetishization of Asian women to a super-American Apparel level. Though as the Sensualista says: it's "a piss poor example of the art of rope." The details: the ad, via Switzerland, is for Max shoes (made in China?), a worldwide chain of inexpensive footwear shops. It's by German agency Jung von Matt. And it just may be the most sexist ad I've ever posted, though the competition is strong (image via Hypotemuse, thanks to Tess for the tip). Related: Jimmy Choo. Shoes to die for.
(click ad, via) It's retro sexist ad time again! The year, 1969. The time was ripe for a new feminine hygiene spray, what with all the stinky hippie chicks looking to be less stinky. To the copy (sentence fragment overload alert!): "Demure is for all the time. Not just for some days. But just because you're a female." The teddy bear here represents a hairy vadge, in case you missed it. For you ad anthropologists, here's 11 of the retro sexist-est ads ever conceived by men.
(click, via)
Maybe it's his cigar smoke that's making her cry? From a 1962 issue of Playboy. The headline is a quote from Edward Bulwer-Lytton, the Brit politician and writer who coined, "The Great Unwashed" and other popular modern catch-phrases. Compare the ad to this—maybe more sexist, maybe less—Cigar Institute ad from 1959.
Hey Symantec, did you approve this ad by Leo Burnett Milan?
(click ad) Previous stops on the worldwide scam ad tour include: BBDO Chile's PS3 ads; this HP India Hitler ad; JWT Cairo's burning babies; JWT Singapore's sexist beer ads; an ad agency men's room in Copenhagen; and the NYC Museum of Sex. And now, this creepy Italian ad for Norton Internet Security 2010. Creepy, not because of the creeps creeping through the girl's "window" (what a terribly heavy-handed visual metaphor), but because of the creepy-looking Stepford daughter and her creepy room (why is that top framed?). Anyway, the reason I'm 99% sure this is a scam ad is because of the minuscule Symantec logo (image via).
Today’s Tech Ads Are All Made By Men And Are All Terrible.
That Silicon Valley & Alley are both massively
dick-heavy is not news—if you’ve ever been to a tech trade show, well, you know.
Therefore, it makes sense that tech company ad agencies would put their best
men on the job, and only men. How’s that working out? Take a
look.
AT&T’s “Network
Guys”
This newish campaign manages to insult both IT people and all
the rest of us. That’s because the “guys” are both unfunny condescending
assholes and complete fucking losers. “You wouldn’t understand what we’re
doing, honey, just go post your cat photos, and hey, can I fuck your homely
ass?” A second spot, set at a rock concert, is just as
bad—“enjoy the show” (you unemployed fucking dumbass stoner loser).
“Rethink Possible” is AT&T’s current tagline. They
should turn that slogan around to face themselves.
“…The boldest email has yet
to be opened. The boldest app has yet to be bought. The boldest file has yet to
be downloaded…”
But the worst ever internet security commercial
has now been written, so close your laptops, young ad scribes.
“Well
guys, our ad bites, so let’s at least shoot in black & white to add bogus
gravitas. And get some pretentious girl who sounds like she goes to Hogwarts to
do the V/O.”
The
creative team on this awful new spot by Grey San Francisco? Six
men.
LG G Flex “the most human
phone ever”
LG
loved this creepy-ass ad so much, released earlier this year, that they’ve removed
it from their official
YouTube page.
I’m all for super surreal shit, if the writing’s funny and I’m sold on the
product. Yeah—no and no.
(What do you think Danny’s hand phone looks more like—a heavily bearded clam or a very
hairy asshole? Also, logically, the mouth should be in the fingers, and the ear
in the palm.)
I
don’t have the credits for this spot, but you can bet all your shiny “gold” ad awards
that the creative team was XY.
Toshiba “Field testing with
Matt & Jamie”
Oh goodie: another unfunny pair of
spokes-jerkoffs. The “field testing” concept is sometimes a good if unoriginal
idea—at least I’ll maybe see some product benefits for my time. But again: the
writing here is just epically bad. Fat macho Matt calls Toshiba’s tech people
“dorks” and us “nerds.” He’s an ironic character. Maybe.
They
made nine of these terrible field test spots. If you’d like to waste eight more
minutes of your life like I did, you can watch the rest of them here. Their laptop fails a monster truck
test and
passes a jumper
cables test
that makes zero sense. Their tablet screen cracks when it’s thrown like a
discus.
Like Matt, these “tests” are “ironic,” irony being, ostensibly, a formula for
humor.
Still,
these ads are an improvement over their “get unstressed with Lucy” (and her
exposed tits) Toshiba commercials from 2012 (all balls
creative team, btw). Toshiba thinks they’ve scrubbed the Internet of all traces
of this amazingly crass and sexist campaign. Sorry,
guys.
Then, there are the endless Apple-bashing
commercials of Samsung.
Now I’m all for bashing Apple, but Samsung has no continuity, no Big Idea. It’s
just a bunch of one-off reactionary
spots
that make the Korean company look childish, and much smaller and less important
than they are.
And,
of course, the creative teams on almost every Samsung tech spot you’ve seen—via
Cheil & Partners (their worldwide agency), the UK’s CHI & Partners, and
RG/A and 72andSunny in America—are all dudes. I’m not linking to all the spots,
but you can look up the credits on Adfreak and Ads of the World.
The best tech ads from the last five years have been by Google. And many of Google's spots are created in-house, like this Cannes Lion-winning Google Instant ad from 2011.
The copywriter? Yes, a man. And a man wrote this playful campaign for Google Play, another favorite of mine. But Google has at least, occasionally, let women into the "ideation" process. Google is not a stupid company.
Besides the bro-culture, another problem with tech ads
is that they’re made with one eye on Silicon Valley, one eye on NASDAQ, and one
eye on the company's own fucking navel, which doesn’t leave very many eyes for the
people who might be interested in buying their overpriced nonessential
products. So what you end up with is tech companies figuratively rubbing one
out on camera. Right
Apple?
It wasn’t always this way. During the dot-com bubble of the
late 1990s, tech advertising was wonderful. There was the inspiring Apple “Think Different” campaign; the
hilarious Pets.com sock puppet commercials; and the
brilliant Monster.com spots. The period was
punctuated by the amazingly bombastic “we just wasted 2 million dollars” 2000 e-trade Super Bowl commercial.
I am
flummoxed that the supposed best analytical minds in the world can’t
make/approve better ads. But—just maybe, guys?—if more women were involved
in creating and approving tech ads, the ads would be more creative and more
effective and less masturbatory bullshit? Tech CEOs? It's probably worth giving some female creatives a shot. Remember: Frankenstein's monster, one of history's most innovative high tech ideas, was created by a woman.
(click ad, from a 1969 Ladies Home Journal, via) Copy: "having to do the same dull work day after day—is a mild form of torture. This can bring on...what is now known as (DUN DUN DUN) 'housewife headache'." Nice Photoshoppy headache-y collage work! Nice wig, too! Previously in: retro ad sexism.
(click ad, via) NO, you don't understand, this is a historic advertising moment, people! OK, it's just a dot (or a "period," if you will) that's representative of menstrual blood, BUT STILL. After years of TV spot after TV spot using that ubiquitous blue liquid, Look! Red! In French ads, Tampax has already acknowledged the monthly presence of blood. As has o.b. in Switzerland with this creepy vampire ad. Meanwhile in America, it's dumb ad after dumb ad.
Ad agency: Leo Burnett, Chicago. Previous notable tampon ads:
• Sexist, via Italy.
• The Kotex Beaver, via Australia.
(click ad, year unknown, via) That deafening sound you hear is the collective gargling of 5,000,000 paranoid young women of "marriage-able age." Very bizarre illustration choice, Listerine—who, in 1946, produced one of the most hilariously, offensively sexist ads of all time.
(click ads) Ho boy, are they asking for big bloody trouble. The new PMS-related campaign which kicked off yesterday makes women look like insane monsters and men look like ball-less pussies. As you can see, the ads are targeting us frightened males, sending us running scared to a micro site called Everything I Do Is Wrong. SaidSteve James, executive director of the California Milk Processor Board: "We think the humor creates the surprise and surprise is always good when you want people to be aware of the message and benefit. We have heard women respond to this with comments like, 'I have got to send this poster to my husband.'" Yeah, you heard ONE woman say that, Steve. You should of done a little more focus-grouping. Fuck milk, amirite guys? Just pour her some vodka (Kidding. Sort of.) The ads are already getting shat on online, according to the Washington Post. Ad agency: Goodby Silverstein & Partners. Note: for your viewing convenience, I've gathered 19 of the most sexist ad campaigns from recent years. Compare and contrast.
(click ad, via) While doing one of my near daily searches for the most ridiculously sexist ads from around the world, I came upon (shut-up) this beaut from 2005 for the Bulgarian spirit. Which is actually not the worst/best sexist Flirt ad ever (that would be this one). Headline translation: Are you ready for tonight? I guess the titted angel is the Flirt mascot, notching another conquest for our drunk-driving hero? More like, Vulgarians (sorry). Previously in: Blow Job Ad of the Week.
(click ad, via) It's an older Spanish ad via Italian motorcycle manufacturer Aprilia, announcing that their Arrecife range of scooters are "now several sizes smaller." Time for a definitive poll! Which is the most sexist ad ever posted on copyranter? Vote in the comments, if you want:
