Mic Mac Mall Back To School Campaign

The Mic Mac Mall in Nova Scotia launched an ad campaign in the late summer in preparation for back to school.  The ads included stylish images of cartoon girls shopping and catchy little slogans relating shopping to school.  However, the campaign was pulled not long after it started; they were receiving a lot of complaints claiming the ads were 'sexist'.  

Personally I don't find the ads to be sexist. They get the message across clearly and are visually well designed.  I understand why some people may find these ads to be sexist or demeaning; there are no male characters in the ad and the chosen text makes it seem like all girls think about is shopping, clothes, etc.  But let's be honest: young girls probably thought these ads were awesome, and those young girls are exactly who they were targeting. I also feel that if there had been any boys in the ads they (the guys in the mall) wouldn't have found it as appealing as girls because of the way the ads were designed.

Doing some research into the issue, I found that it was mostly older women, who are in University or graduated who find these ads to be sexist.  I don't think that they fully understand what these ads are trying to do. The younger generations now are completely different from how the younger generations of the past were; the world is changing and so are the people in it.  Having grown up in the generation that first saw the boom of computers, social media and all things technological I feel I have a better understanding of what today's youth find appropriate and 'cool' versus what the past generations may have felt.  

I believe if the ad would have included young men as well as women it wouldn't have gotten any publicity (bad publicity); people would have seen the ads but no one would have said anything.  The fact that people were noticing that there were only women in the ads seems strange to me (I wouldn't have noticed).  To me this means that there are still women out there who don't feel like we're equal to men (although there really isn't much of a gap in today's open and accepting society).

Although the campaign probably had an adverse effect on the mall's brand (I feel safe saying most people felt this whole 'scandal' to be laughable), I don't think it should have. The ads fit nicely with the rest of the mall's branding and they did a good job targeting their desired audience.