Ad watchdog rules against horse racing ad with slogan ‘Treat a woman like a race horse and she’ll never be a nag’
A print ad for horse racing venue Quilly Park has fallen foul of the ad watchdog over the slogan “Treat a woman like a race horse and she’ll never be a nag”, with the Ad Standards Board (ASB) ruling it was discriminatory to women.
A complaint to the ASB suggested the the ad was sexist and disgraceful.
“It is sexist and offensive to women. The country race meeting is a family event and a significant number of jockeys were women – making the offensive advertisement even more disgraceful.”
Quilly Park defended the ad arguing it was “more directed at the male audience” as males predominantly own Thoroughbreds.
“Public issues such as family violence and the recent issue in the mounting yard @Flemington, we thought a play on words in the environment we are targeting might create a laugh. And a discussion.”
S T R E T C H
Nothing like attempting to post rationalise your terrible attitude to women.
In the bin.
Does anyone know how much horse meat is processed into dog food? Anyone? Is it?
Yes but….let the market decide. If the message offends, the business suffers.
They learn their lesson the real and hard way.
That’s the problem in Australia – an unelected lynch-mob of Nanny Staters become the censors, deciding what we do/do not see or read. Who the hell are they and when did we the people elect them? Answer: nobodies, and we didn’t.
We as a people need to stop behaving like children, running to some bureaucratic “mummy and daddy” every time something “offends” us. The market is the toughest arbiter.
The market is indeed the toughest arbiter, Mike, and as it comprises approx 51% women, it has spoken. Whether you like the sender of the message doesn’t matter much.
I’m always interested to note that when someone starts huffing and puffing about the Nanny State, it’s usually because they in some way agree with an offensive act or message. If we don’t impose standards on ourselves, someone else will and I can think of worse disciplinarians than a Nanny, can’t you?