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.
This article appears in Aug 22-28, 2013.
Like the ill-fated “Do it on the Bus” campaign, this too was the work of another out of province ad agency. This time, Suburbia, out of Vancouver…
Comedy is so difficult. They came so close to getting it right.
All they had to do is depict some fat, stupid, gluttonous boys, talking about how ‘lunch’ was their favorite class.
A look at advertising reinforces the point. Making a joke at the expense of one sex isn’t just acceptable, it’s extremely funny — as long as they happen to be male.
sigh i really don’t see a problem with them but society has turned 100% to the vocal annoying minority running things
Is that all people have to complain about? Get on with life.
Please never stop the American Apparel adverts. Seriously, I love those ads.
I, as a woman, am not personally offended by this ad because it does not apply to me. I know that being good at math goes beyond how many dresses I bought at the mall. I’m also sure that most girls will come to this realization quickly, if they haven’t already. We do have brains, after all.
But I also know that this message is not directed at me. It’s directed at children and teenaged girls who are impressionable and are already bombarded with imagery and messages from the media that tell them they need to look a certain way, be a certain weight, dress in certain clothes, find a man, etc. That there’s a certain standard of living that defines you as a female.
The thing is, a lot of these messages come from a source that is far too large and beyond our control. So when a local mall chooses to re-enforce these stereotypes it’s not so much about being offended. It’s about being frustrated. It’s cliched and tired advertising. It’s hard enough to compete with the mass media that kids are connected to 24/7 (smartphones, internet, TV).
But at least with something local like this there is an opportunity to have a voice, to be heard and at least say that maybe this isn’t the right message. It’s a matter of controlling the variables that can be controlled. Maybe it won’t make a difference in the big scheme of things, but it’s a small start to say that we want to change the way that women are portrayed (and men, and everyone in between, for that matter).
Maybe that makes me part of this “vocal, annoying minority”. But it’s naive to think that sitting quietly for fear of bothering the people who don’t have a problem with the status quo ever helped us make any progress in society.