What words come to mind when you see the ads above? Cringey? Creepy? Sexist and misogynistic? So bad they are funny? This is how we all feel when we see vintage ads from the past but the truth is the marketing world still often misses the mark when it comes to portraying women. From pigeon-holing women into domestic servant roles or marketing as if their worth can only be measured by their attractiveness to the male gaze. 

Take the above three ads, for example, wives are for cooking but also should be as innocent as a child and if they don’t use Lysol they’ll smell bad and should be left! WUT? Can you say, “EW, DAVID!” (Watch Schitt’s Creek if you haven’t) These ads leave us feeling like our grandmothers and great-grandmothers must have been furious all the time. But the sexist marketing train doesn’t stop here, would you like to see a blast from the marketing past that we wish didn’t exist? Check out this Baby Soft TV ad from the ’70s. That’s something that really can’t be unseen, y’all.

How about some light domestic abuse, complete body objectification, and disrespect to sell cigarettes, coffee, and… Construction equipment?! Some of these vintage ads are so bad they are like car crashes, you just can’t help but stare. If these aren’t enough and you’d like to see more ads from the “Good ‘Ole Days”, check out this article from Business Insider, “26 Sexist Ads Of The 'Mad Men' Era That Companies Wish We'd Forget” 

We can all agree that the advertisements we’ve seen so far are awful and nothing even close to that would be running today, right? We’re a modern people, all about equality for all, right?  Well, let’s take a look at some 21st Century ads…

So American Apparel is selling porn as well as clothing. Bic thinks women should be sweet while looking girlish and in order to be a boss she must learn how to think like a man because men are bosses, obvi. A 2016 gym advertisement thinks that pear-shaped women shouldn’t exist. A deodorant company thinks women go about cooking freaking Thanksgiving dinner in lingerie. And to top it all off in 2020, we have a government-funded ad depicting women staying home and performing all of the household duties because it would be weird to see a man at home during a pandemic… 

While husbands beating wives may be out-of-style, modern-day marketing still has many failings when it comes to portraying women in an equal standard as men. “In 2019, the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media found that ads up for awards at the prestigious Cannes Lions advertising festival depicted male characters working almost twice as often as female characters.” - New York Times Women are still more likely to be portrayed in domestic roles or used as objects to sell products to men. 

As a woman-owned marketing business, Betsy Bash strives to #breakthebias with every social media post, ad, or video we create for our clients. Healthy, equality-focused marketing is essential in helping to re-shape a society that is fair to everyone. We hope you enjoyed this dark-humored yet realistic look into marketing fails and please shoot us a DM on Instagram if you know of any hilariously bad marketing gems we missed!