Once in a while, you accidentally stick your foot in your mouth. For some, it happens more often that they'd like, but it happens. Thankfully, we're not huge corporations — we can shrug off those gaffes and go on with our lives with an apology. For Danish shoe company Bianco, it wasn't as easy as just saying "I'm sorry." After a new ad was posted online, viewers from all over the world saw the clip (which was supposed to be a manifesto for female strength) as just another depiction of angry women.
In the ad's description, Bianco writes, "If most agree that pay should be equal but we still are not there, then something new must happen and this is why Bianco’s new campaign film puts petrol on the embers and suggests that the aim has simply been too low. Why fight for equal pay, when you can fight for more pay than men instead? [...] Therefore, in Bianco’s new film, the women have had enough and, with their shoes as weapons, they fight against those with the money under the slogan Equal Pay is not Enough and #WomenNeedMore."
How do they fight back? The women in the ad literally go ham. One kicks a coffee mug at a man's face. Another tosses her stiletto through a conference room window. A third jumps on the hood of a car — all in an effort to "fight" for equal pay. While we see what Bianco was going for, the execution was a little...crass.
One woman agreed, posting on the brand's Facebook page, explaining that she may have "misunderstood." Another added, “A lot of women are angry about it, but funnily enough not because we want to buy more shoes. Isn’t it great when capitalism attempts to cash in on feminism? What a load of bullshit." For its part, Bianco is responding to each and every comment.
In a statement posted by the Daily Mail, Bianco explains that the commercial was completely satirical and a joke packaged in a commercial. The brand doesn't apologize for its depiction of women as angry and violent, but does lay out the ad's intentions. "The message of the advertisement is to point out the absurdity of that there is still no equal pay. We do this with the absurd argument that women must fight to get more pay than men, because it’s more expensive to be a woman than it is to be a man," the statement reads. "The video shows some conditions worth being angry about, which is also why we show angry women. But of course we do not encourage to violence — that is neither the way to get a raise. The ad is a fashion commercial with a satirical twist."
Check out the ad for yourself.