[I can't find this ad on the internet. I will photograph it next time I see it.]
(For those of you with poor French and no English equivalents nearby, it reads, Colder than the 24-year-old girl whom you thought was 32!!)
Wow. I guess the Coors marketing department thought that "Coors: No Ugly Chicks!" lacked a certain subtlety. Now I'm not one to cry misogyny. I thought last summer's beer ad, "For the equality of the sexes: once at your place, once at hers" was amusing, unconsciously doing its little part to chip away at the sexual double standard (I am not sure what it said in English; as with this summer, I passed the fairweather months of 2008 in La Belle Province). Hey, even the old "scantily-clad women" fallback is okay. I mean, men like beautiful, scantily-clad women. This is a fact of life. (Women, on the other hand, like scantily-clad people in general, but ads still prefer to play instead to our often-crippling insecurities about how attractive we are.) But Coors really lost it on this one. This ad is being displayed to the general public, not exclusively in men's toilets and locker rooms. Therefore the ad gives off two distinct messages:
"Hey guys, if a girl rebuffs your come-ons, she must be frigid, ha ha ha!"
"Hey ladies, you have until 31 to land a man before you become unattractive. Quick, get married for your lives!"
And Coors is wondering why women don't buy their beer?!
Well, Coors, I hate to make generalizations, but I'm guessing that when your marketing department sits down to profile their target audience, "concerned about gender parity" doesn't quite make the list. So, I'm going to go ahead and suggest that you hire new marketing people, and maybe this time throw in a woman or two. Here, I'll even make you an ad to get started.
But you might want to photoshop it better.
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