The advertising world is a truly fascinating instance of subtle or even overt psychological manipulation. Its basic formula — (1) Create a feeling of need or inadequacy (2) Offer a product to fill the void (3) ??? (4) Profit!!! –- is one that is intrinsically demeaning. It is therefore unsurprising that accusations of sexism are often hurled with great fervor at many marketing campaigns. Some of these are mild and easily brushed off – yes, gender specific products are pitched at the relevant sex, but they are necessarily discriminatory. Some are harder to defend – whether overtly sexualizing women in advertisements amounts to sexism is debatable. Others are impossible to defend, either because they blatantly proclaim one gender as inferior or because they reinforce established sexist gender stereotypes. Here are 15 really, really sexist ads.
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Everyday, we’re bombarded by advertising. No matter which way you look, corporate messages implore you to purchase their way of thinking. By and large just the sheer amount of exposure works its magic upon consumers everywhere, urging them to buy more than ever before. However, occasionally an advertising campaign or marketing strategy is so poorly conceived that all its makers receive is backlash. Whether it be having advertising banned, arresting those involved or absolute rejection by the public, these flops make up an advertiser’s (and their clients’) worst nightmares. These are 15 of the biggest failures in marketing:

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Far from the smokey rooms of Mad Men and the old-school ad campaign that told consumers what they were supposed to like, modern marketing whizzes have decided they are just much, much too lazy for that. A viral campaign is a marketing blitz that essentially creates a pitch which is cool and interesting enough that consumers will spread it on its own. Sometimes a campaign is designed to be viral. Sometimes it gets there on its own. The whole phenomenon is either heartening in the sense that advertising has been forced to a new level of originality, or incredibly depressing as consumerism has finally cemented itself as having all the qualities of a virulent social disease.

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Any economist will tell you that the world runs on hard work, natural resources and ceaseless innovation. Crafty companies and individuals have discovered that 100% of economists are boring and liars. The world in fact runs on a variety of drugs, broken dreams, and–most important of all–fame. To this end, they have gone out of their way to concoct the most harebrained stunts that rocket them to fame and success. Or infamy and sleaze, but this is pop culture so the line is a fine one.

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AMC’s Mad Men has been rocking the airwaves for more than three years.  The show, which follows the exploits of Madison Avenue’s Sterling Cooper advertising agency in the first part of 1960’s, has just entered its fourth season and is still just as fresh and stirring as it was in its first.  Critics have applauded the show for making excellent use of marketing tactics, some real and some fictional.  Here we have collected fifteen of the most genius tactics aired to date. 
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