Recently, a mall in Nova Scotia, The Mic Mac Mall, has come under fire for their blatantly sexist and degrading back-to-school ad campaign. These, pictured above, feature women who promote shopping over getting an education, thus implying women are people who are most suitable to be seen, and not education (or heard!).
The agency that created the campaign, Suburbia Advertising, claims to, get shoppers which is this company's attempt at promoting itself with a double entendre. Their out-of-the-box, apparently innovative, creative techniques help them understand Canadian shoppers best, thus attracting a greater customer base for the brands they work with. This being said, the testimonials found on their website do little to justify what & just how well this advertising company brings in so many new shoppers. The fluffy, non-specific feedback paired with the absolute failure of a back-to-school campaign at The Mic Mac Mall would leave most to believe that Suburbia Advertising in fact, does not understand shoppers, especially those found in Nova Scotia. They single-handedly managed to greatly offend the entire population of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia with sexist, pre-suffragette inspired messages.
Despite a lack of ethical and moral judgement, the management at The Mic Mac Mall decided to give this ad campaign its seal of approval. As any self-respecting woman, I would not have approved of this campaign. It enables men to revert to a state of social consciousness where women are perceived as unintelligent, uneducated, and worst of all, uneducate-ABLE. The public outcry against this campaign running demonstrates a higher social consciousness held by both men and women in the city of Dartmouth, which is personally, quite satisfying and reassuring for the state of social equality in Canada. This being said, Suburbia Advertising did an outrageously poor job of getting customers and it most certainly did not properly nor accurately reflect the personality, priorities, and needs of its target market.
Considering the interviews and testimonials I researched in response to this campaign, it isn't wild to believe this campaign wasn't problematic only due to its sexist message. Disregarding the sexist tone of the campaign, these ads degrade the importance of proper education. It could just have easily been as offensive had both men and women been featured in the campaign as these would have targeted a larger audience being both young men and women, encouraging them to perhaps ditch school to hit the mall.
Despite this back-to-school campaign being so offensive, I doubt The Mic Mac Mall lost much of its customer base as, in reality, people go to malls to shop at difference stores, with completely independent campaigns, who maintain completely different ethical and moral guidelines. I don't doubt there were several companies who rent store locations in The Mic Mac Mall who also felt deeply offended by the mall's back-to-school ads.
I can understand why Suburbia Advertising would have used a more cartoony & graphic approach to this campaign, as they were obviously aiming to resonate something within a younger audience. Young girls who idolize their mom as well as other fashion icons could more easily relate to the messages of the campaign through this style of art. That being said, this only made the severity of the situation more imminent. The use of graphics and cartoons as well as hand-written fonts made the message more clearly understood to a younger audience, thus posing a greater threat — the hurtful message could have more obviously and readily been understood and acted upon by this impressionable young audience.
I do believe The Mic Mac Mall needed to deliver an apology, however I feel somewhat at an unease with their $5000 donation. I understand how this money could be beneficial to the city of Dartmouth as this money went towards supporting young girls who don't have direct access to the education they need. I can appreciate this aspect of the mall's attempt at redemption, however I can't help but raise the problem I have. It almost feels as though The Mic Mac Mall is attempting to buy forgiveness from the public. Perhaps encouraging staff members to volunteer with underprivileged youth would have been a more suitable, ethically clean solution.
Overall, disregarding the ads with the problematic & offensive messages, The Mic Mac Mall's promotional campaign featuring the same graphic & cartoony women is not offensive. The women featured are thin and tall, however they are obviously not real. There is a fine line between poisoning young women's ideals of what they should strive to look like, and just creating cartoons in a particular artists' style. I feel this type of art reflects simply an illustrator's personal art style and should not be interpreted as anything else. The problem with the back-to-school campaign lied truly with the messages written on the ads, not with the graphics.
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