Diet Cokes -The Gardner Ad, A Rare Role Reversal Moment In Advertising!
Who remembers Diet Cokes' bold gender reversal advertising campaign launched in the mid 90’s?
When I search for the most sexist ads in history, I get a list of ads that are sexist towards females, some of them are just shocking, however not a single ad that is sexist towards males made it onto any of those lists.
But the Diet Coke ad campaign of the 90’s challenged that familiar trend in my mind, even be it, in a relatively mild and innocent manner, depicting nothing more than a chiseled male torso set to a pretty powerful soundtrack. I believe it deserves more study and focus in the field of advertising, psychology, philosophy & cultural influence.
Those innocent little 1 minute or less ads, that stumbled upon the perfect formula to dazzle us impressionable girls into buying more Diet Coke, have now become an old memory from a different era!
Why didn’t this form of advertising take off when targeting the female market though? Why didn’t even more daring content emerge, in line with the type of sexist advertisements we had seen in the past that were targeted toward men?
If you don’t know any of the ads from the series, here’s the final one, The Gardner.
