It’s a well known fact that in many ads, men are portrayed as bumbling idiots. It’s just payback for all those years Mad Men “put women in their place” by posing them in front of refrigerators, draping them across the hoods of cars and generally treating them like hysterical dumb blonds who were only good for sex and cooking dinner.
And so it is without surprise we have yet another ad treating men as if they just had half their brain removed and, along with it, half their IQ.
Cumberland Farms, which made great use of David Hasselhoff in past years, is out with a Full Contact-created ad called Moving Day in which four men turn into idiots after a woman hands then iced coffee from Cumberland Farms.
Explaining the concept as if it were perfectly normal, Cumberland Farms Senior Manager of Brand Strategy said,”Our new ‘Moving Day’ ad speaks to the quality and value of Cumberland Farms’ Farmhouse Blend iced coffee, and the spot focuses more on the product itself than our past iced coffee commercials. Our agency, Full Contact did a great job inserting iced coffee imagery into a chaotic and humorous scenario, in which movers are so attached to their delicious Cumberland farms iced coffee that they simply cannot put it down — even if it means breaking valuables.”
Right now you’re saying, “Oh but it’s just a joke. Lighten up. Don’t be so cynical.” And, yea, that’s what we told women in the 1960’s too. Doesn’t make it right.
