Mic Mac Mall

The Mic Mac Mall is a one of the most popular malls in Atlantic Canada. It is located in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. The mall has  around 160 stores. Suburbia is the agency who created the ads for Mic Mac Mall. With the majority of the malls customers being women I can see why the company, wanted to target the female population. Females usually tend to spend more time in malls and end up spending more money. This campaign was created for the back to school shopping season. The ad campaign features a series of different sentences such as "Mixing patterns- now that's a science!" and "My favourite class? Shop!". Each ad features an image of a female with either clothes, a cellphone or shopping bags in their hands.

I am not surprised that the mall received numerous  complaints about the ads and demanded they be removed. I think these ads are stereotyping women. They state that females care more about shopping than education. For example one of the billboards shown reads, "Social Studies? Does posting my new boots on Facebook count? For all your back to school answers." I can see how Suburbia, the agency who designed the ad, was trying to connect to the public by using a very popular social media comment, but the main focus remains on the stereotypical representation of a female. The ads depict women as being careless towards education and unprofessionalism. 

I do not think the agency did a good job in creating a campaign to promote back to school shopping. In my opinion I think the Mic Mac Mall Back to School Campaign was sexist and demeaning to women. I don’t think the campaign would have received the same about of publicity if it had featured images of men as well. This would have created an ad which was not specifically targeting women.    

I do think this ad campaign reflected poorly on the mall and agency. I think the Mic Mac Mall made a smart decision to make a formal apologize to the public and make the donation. I think companies will now think twice about using Suburbia for their ads.