Seriously. Am I the only one who doesn’t find this offensive? Should I have thinner skin?

you go, you go-getter!

1- Some marketing team brainstormed ideas for creating a douche ad geared towards professional, career-oriented women and NOBODY stepped up to point out how completely absurd the whole concept was (not just the incredibly dumb resulting ad, but the idea of mixing a hoo-hah cleanser with professional self-esteem jive).

2- Why do so many women STILL buy ‘women’s’ magazines? How come they don’t get sick of that type of insulting, condescending tripe? I’m disgusted just standing in the grocery cash lineup, reading the covers!

Even if, for some bizarre reason, you ENJOY it, you would only ever need to buy a single issue because they’re always the same:

- An article about weight or weight loss.

- A list of what men like in bed.

- A couple of warm, fuzzy articles about self-esteem.

- Hundreds of ads for makeup, wrinkle creams, cellulite treatments, diet products and, evidently, salary-boosting douches… Because everything they said in the feel-good articles is glib chatter and you *really need* all that stuff to be, and feel, worthy.

Sorry, I’m just perpetually amazed- and puzzled- at what these publications can get away with; the contempt and hypocrisy they dish out on their own readership.

I think perhaps you buy too much into the media-agenda that there’s a life-crushing-recession.

The recession doesn’t affect everyone in a negative way, neither does it affect everyone.

It’s not quite the modern saying, but then Vader never said “Luke, I am your father.” Unless you are saying they were sponsored?

What is this, Mad Men?

I never have to ask for a raise.

I still douche myself weekly just in case our Director surprisingly drops in to ask me what I’m working on.

Me, I always scrub down my scrotum with Lava for Men With Baking Soda soap and anoint it with special Metholated Bag Balm before interviews and performance reviews.

It makes sense too because a job interview is probably the closest that most Americans will ever get being in battle. It’s a single defining moment where their lives will significantly change either way depending on how they do. Far from being degrading to women, I think it’s just giving women the same advice that we’ve traditionally given to men in these sorts of situations since classical times. If they took the same ad and swapped out the soap for axe body spray or whatever I doubt people would be complaining.

Asking for money is one of the most challenging tasks for women – even women who know they’re very good at what they do. It harkens back to the days when women were seen as “un-feminine” for having anything to do with money and asking.

It’s actually one of the topics I address in my book, “Testosterone-Free Marketing”

Denise Michaels

“Why do you say that?”

“Because she smells slightly of vinegar and plum blossoms.”

Ads like this have been around since about the time of the Depression. You link any kind of emotional fear to economic fear and they both get stronger. It doesn’t *matter at all* if your target audience will never, ever ask for a raise. That’s not the point. The point is to associate “being a good worker” and “being employed” and “not getting shit-canned” with using the product.

In the 30′s, there were ads for coffee that said if you didn’t drink it you’d be sleepy looking and get fired. There were ads for non caffeinated beverages that said if you drank coffee you’d be nervous and say weird stuff and not sleep and be off-your-game and get fired. The phrase “Always a bridesmaid, never a bride,” originated in a Listerine print ad that blatantly stated that women with bad breath were in danger of not getting a husband (which is an economic issue). As I tell my students, Listerine didn’t invent mouthwash… they invented bad breath.

We have ads for toilet paper that suggest that if you use the wrong brand you could get sick and miss work. Ads for shoe polish, toothpaste and gum that you need to use so that you keep spiffy on the job.

This ad isn’t surprising at all. And my guess is that it works pretty well.

And if you don’t like them apples, try some of these:

http://www.lipmagazine.org/images/lysol_big.jpg

Yes. Lysol.