Former Big Brother star Daniel Hayes has had an advert for his Hayeswinckle real estate agency and property management firm banned for its misogynistic, ageist and overly violent imagery.
The ad depicted an elderly woman holding a shotgun accompanied with the tagline: “Is your property manager a grumpy old cow? Relax, nice ones do exist…”
The ad appeared in an unnamed newspaper and received a complaint bemoaning the ad’s depiction of the woman as “ugly, sexless and one-eyed crazy”.
The complainant also said they found the “Grumpy old cow” tagline prejudicial.
“‘Grumpy old cow’ is gender specific term that reveals a prejudice towards older females participating and exercising power in the professional world, and is a trope that is part of a genre chain that includes ‘silly cow’, ‘fat cow’, ‘stupid cow’ etc. In this it is insulting and discriminatory, and moreover seeks to normalise these meanings within mainstream discourse. Referring to women as ‘cows’, ‘hippos’, ‘pigs’ or ‘dogs’ is clearly dehumanising and loaded with misogynistic meaning”.
Hayeswinckle did not issue a response to the Ad Standards panel which upheld the complaint finding that the language, depiction of the woman and the presence of a shotgun in the ad were offensive and unnecessary in the promotion of a real estate agency.
However, he did later issue an apology adding that “our intention was never to offend anybody.”
“In hindsight it was a mistake,” Hayes said.
“The ad won’t be run again.
“We read the report and we took what they said on board. We are sorry if we have offended anybody.”
Hayeswinckle has found itself in hot water before with Ad Standards. In 2017, it breached the same rules for using a photo of an old woman with the same “grumpy old cow” tagline.
