OUT OF DATE— AND ABSURDLY NANNYISH

ONCE upon a time, back in my Mad Men days when I was head of copywriting for an advertising agency, my most successful advert was ‘Housewives! Now you can afford to pay for the central heating out of your monthly housekeeping.’

And I seem to remember the slogan ‘A Woman’s life is in the Home’ for a sewing machine. Ads were certainly sexist back then.

But this is 2017 not 1967. The ASA is absurdly out of date in trying to ban gender stereotyping. It’s just corporate virtue-signalling: ‘Look how good and socially conscious we are!’ Honestly, how nannyish.

An advert showing a woman using

a vacuum cleaner or doing the cooking is not going to turn us back into housewives.

These days, there’s usually a man in the background anyway, holding the baby or snatching the wooden spoon from the female hand on the grounds that he’s a better cook than she is. (In my marriage, he is, and he picks up my socks.)

The ASA crying ‘social justice’ comes over as far more patronising and old-fashioned than most of the advertising companies — who pay for its existence — these days can either afford, or wish, to be.

Today’s advertising creatives know the habits and fancies of us consumers down to the last nuance — it’s their job, after all! They know what entertains, provokes and what sells.

The ASA should leave them alone — and let them do their job.