With Target and shopping mecca Forever 21 on the way, business at Mic Mac Mall is moving forward. But the mall’s ad campaign is moving in the opposite direction: backwards, to stereotypes reminiscent of the early 20th century.
The back-to-school advertising campaign featured the stick-thin cartoon women the mall has been using for the past few years but this time they brandished slogans such as: “Social studies? Does posting my new boots on Facebook count?” “My favourite class? Shop!” and “Mixing patterns- now that’s a science!” with the tagline: “For all your back to school answers.” The offensive ads were removed from the mall’s website, Facebook and Twitter pages earlier today.
This ad campaign is reminiscent of the infamous "math class is tough!" Teen Talk Barbie released 21 years ago. They feature female cartoons who care more about shopping than academia. In a world where women are still struggling with old-school sexism and stereotyping, this is unacceptable.
Sexist and controversial ad campaigns seem to be a trend in Halifax. Earlier this year, Mount Saint Vincent released this billboard advertising the Riva Spatz Women’s Wall of Honour that features three men. And I’m sure we all recall the Halifax Bridge Commission’s Listen to Bridget campaign that encouraged drivers to be safe using over-sexualized slogans and a phone sex-esque voice in radio and TV ads last year.
The Mic Mall ads garnered a highly negative response from tweeters and Buzzfeed and Huffington Post Canada articles. The mall responded to this backlash via Twitter stating, “The campaign’s intent was to correlate school subjects to shopping & our strong media presence in a humorous & light hearted manner.” Twitter users called bullshit on this ‘apology’ and stated that if it really was humorous, no explanation would be necessary.
Apparently Mic Mic Mall got the message. Currently the mall’s Twitter page and Facebook page have new photos featuring a cartoon woman in the usual style that say, ‘I love my style. I love my Mic Mac.’ and ‘It’s a good day to shop.’ respectively.
