Ditsy daddies and a lack of ladies

I love ads that make you laugh.

But being funny doesn’t excuse an ad for perpetuating harmful gender stereotypes.

I’m talking about Philadelphia’s ad, banned last week by the ASA for breaking new rules.

It opens in a restaurant. A mother gives a father their baby. He gets chatting to another new dad by a conveyor belt serving buffet food. Distracted by the delicious snacks, they absentmindedly put their babies down on the conveyor belt. “Let’s not tell mum”, one dad says, after they’ve rescued the kids.

Being a new parent is tough. Of course you’re going to screw up. And there’s nothing wrong with depicting this.

However, solely showing dads being incompetent is problematic. Impressionable society is left with the message:

“Get the babies back to mum! Restore order! Haha!”

Mum is the sensible, appropriate caregiver. Silly daddy belongs in the office, or some other “manly” sphere.

This is unhelpful for men being equal in the home, which in turn is unhelpful for women being equal in the workplace.

But the worst thing is, it’s all for nothing. The ad isn’t even funny.

Then there’s Volkswagen’s eGolf ad, also banned by the ASA last week.

Yes, it features women. For some this ticks the box. But if you are hawk-eyed, or simply sane, you will have noticed that only two out of seven people are female.

One woman may have just climbed a mountain and the other given birth — probably the most badass achievement of all — but this doesn’t distract from the fact that both are passive. They sleep and sit, while the men do extraordinary things. Women are one-dimensional and background noise: a representation far from reality.

For all Adland’s talk about leading social change, it is — at times — still dawdling behind.

But the ASA’s new rules can actually make positive and lasting change happen.

Doubting these banned ads are harmful is accepting age-old, tired ideas that contribute to an unequal society.

And for those who lament “you can’t joke about anything anymore!”, being mindful of gender stereotypes doesn’t come at the expense of humour. In fact, it liberates creative people to find fresh ways of being funny.

Written by Lottie Grant, copywriter at Leith