In their 2015 Holiday catalog, Bloomingdale’s put out an ad that has been causing some uproar, which as far as I’m concerned is well deserved (much more deserved than the outrage over the red Starbucks cups). In the ad, a man stands beside a woman who is distracted in conversation nearby, creepily looking at her, and it reads, “Spike your best friend’s eggnog when they’re not looking”.
I’m just going to jump right into it: this ad sends a message that date rape is okay. This is a major issue in our society right now, especially in the work force and on college campuses. How this ad got through what I’m sure is a rigorous review process without someone saying, “This isn’t a good idea” is beyond me, especially knowing that Bloomingdale’s management team is led mainly by women. Okay, maybe they didn’t mean to directly refer to date rape, a very serious issue, but they certainly are insinuating it. Nevertheless, it is NEVER okay to put alcohol, or anything else, in someone else’s drink without them knowing, regardless of what your intention is. Spiked eggnog? That’s totally fine! But why are you sneaking it into your “best friend’s” drink, can’t you just ask her if she would like it spiked? That is the problem here. The fact that this is even an issue over a Christmas ad is just an example of how our society thinks men can do whatever they want with women who may even be “their best friend”. Also, the fact that none of the women on the review team felt that this might be in poor taste is an issue because it shows that date rape is becoming normalized. And might I just point to some statistics: 80% of rape victims say they know their rapist, and a staggering 47% say their rapist was a friend. That is why Bloomingdale’s saying this girl is his friend does nothing to help the situation.
Bloomingdales has since apologized via twitter saying the ad was “inappropriate and in poor taste” (little late now for that realization, don’t you think?) and taken the ad out of their campaign. I’m glad, because this is one controversy in the media lately that I actually believe is detrimental to our society. There have been other controversial ads recently, like the Bud Light #UpForWhatever campaign back in April, which added, “the perfect beer for removing ‘no’ from your vocabulary for the night” to their beer bottles. The slogan caused an uproar pretty quickly for insinuating date rape and was removed. Personally, I can see how that one might not have been meant to insinuate sex, but can definitely see why people were upset. The Bloomingdale’s ad however is really upsetting and hopefully they and other companies will learn from the mistake, as the last thing we need in our society is companies we look up to normalizing major issues like this.