These Vintage Ads Would Most Likely Be Banned Today
Advertising has been around for a very long time now, and it goes back hundreds of years now. However, what has changed a lot is the delivery of ads, and what they contain. Over the course of history, there have been all kinds of stereotypes and standards that were incorporated into many ads. Ads have evolved and progressed with time, thankfully. Things that were okay in the past have become unacceptable these days. In fact, some things that these ads feature would be banned nowadays.
The Ideal Brain Tonic
In recent years, there have been plenty of products that have stayed the same over time. All the same, the advertising and branding have shifted significantly in order to adapt to the changing times. We can definitely see this happening to a famous soda brand.
The Ideal Brain Tonic
Nowadays, they don’t actually need to advertise themselves. However, back in the late 1890s, they were advertised as “Brain Tonic”. They claimed to relieve mental and physical exhaustion as well as headaches. We can’t help but be curious about the science behind this product. We’d imagine plenty of people could do with it today!
Not Soon Enough
While this is a popular drink all over the world, it’s no secret that the amount of sugar it has, its dizziness, and the overall ingredients in it make it a rather unhealthy soda to drink at any time, let alone on a regular basis.
Not Soon Enough
According to this ad, when this drink is consumed in the “early formative period”, kids will be more likely to fit in. This is as opposed to kids who don’t typically drink this soda. We feel like we need to see the data behind this claim and what method of research they used…
Women Belong In The Kitchen
It’s understandable that an ad like this would get heaps of backlash if it were released nowadays, and for good reason. All kinds of stereotypes like this one were rather popular in the late 1940s. It was made out that women belonged only in the kitchen and nowhere else.
Women Belong In The Kitchen
Not to mention, this ad also makes the case that men are actually incapable of making themselves food or any kind of meal. In all honesty, we wouldn’t have guessed otherwise. What man in the 1940s would know how to cook at all?
Always A Bridesmaid
Looking at these vintage ads, we’re seeing a pattern here. It mainly includes women who dream of nothing more than being a wife to a man who they can cook and clean for. Nowadays, we know that women are more than just wives who cook and clean for their husbands.
Always A Bridesmaid
Relationships are a lot more complex than that now. This mouthwash ad from 1928 was rather typical for its time. It claims that young women who had bad breath would never, ever, become a bride like all their friends.
Flip’N Style
The first rule of great advertising is to make your product appeal to everyone out there, whether they’re your customer or not. Of course, every product is made for a certain audience – no product will be fit for every single person.
Flip’N Style
In 1972, however, this marketing team refused to accept that fact. They were not about to exclude bald people in their hairdryer campaign. So, their solution was to use a bald model in their ads for their new hairdryer. Their logic? That bald people would enjoy it since it’s “fun to have”.
Morning Mouth
Everyone knows that morning breath is just one of those things that are simply not in our control. We can’t imagine any kind of situation that would involve a person ensuring they have morning breath on purpose.
Morning Mouth
However, back in 1953, women felt as if it was their fault they woke up with morning breath. They should have been more conscious of the problem and taken all the preventative measures they could, right? Otherwise, they may never fall in love or get married!
Television Makes Kids Smarter
Television had become a big part of all our lives over the past few decades, that’s for sure. It’s rather common to watch TV after getting home from a long day at work, or on weekends when you want to relax. It’s a way to wind down.
Television Makes Kids Smarter
Nowadays, parents see how TV can affect their kids negatively and try to limit their screen time. They encourage them to engage with the outside world. Well, this ad seems to have the opposite opinion on the matter – it encourages kids to watch TV so their grades will go up.
Sun-Starved Baby
When it comes to advertising and marketing in general, parents are a great target. This is because they’re always focused and ready to invest in items that promise happier and healthier children. However, some of these parenting techniques can get rather controversial.
Sun Starved Baby
We can imagine several arguments that were caused by this 1930s ad that encouraged parents to go out and buy this sun-lamp for their kids to sleep underneath. In today’s day and age, we don’t see this selling well.
It Takes Minutes To Lose Him
It looks like we’re very lucky these days to have normalized morning breath. It turns out that men in the past would not be able to stand women who had bad breath in the morning. This ad for mouthwash is a great example of that.
It Takes Minutes To Lose Him
It shows that women who had bad breath were at risk of their husbands leaving them as a result and going on to find a new wife with clean breath. These days, women would have more than enough to say about an ad like this.
Even Woman Can Open It
You know something is controversial when it has its very own Wikipedia page. This ad was initially released in 1953 and flew under the radar unnoticed for quite a while. However, later on, it began sparking a lot of controversy.
Even Woman Can Open It
It was created to show off the brand’s twist-off bottle cap. They claimed that it made it so easy to open bottles that even a woman could do it with no issue at all. Women have had more and more negative things to say about this ad in recent years.
Deodorant Failure
Deodorant is a product that is used by almost everyone. However, brands and advertising companies back in the day truly did their best when it came to creating ads for the product. Here we can see it in action.
Deodorant Failure
This company claimed that men would be absolutely repelled by the smell of their sweaty wives. According to this ad, a deodorant mishap would cost a woman her popularity, and her husband! The only way to ensure this would never happen would be by buying their product.
Beautiful But Dumb
It looks like a lot of products being advertised back in the day involved targeting women for the most part. We have a feeling that the fact that a lot of these companies believed that women were “beautiful but dumb” led them to believe that they would buy whatever they were told to.
Beautiful But Dumb
Here we see an advertisement for a deodorant that claimed the first rule of attracting a husband was making sure you smell good. The pattern is really going strong in all these ads, wouldn’t you agree?
Beauty Is Pain
To this day, it’s common for advertisements to make promises such as making someone look younger, have fewer wrinkles, and make imperfections simply disappear. While the past few decades haven’t changed much in this regard, the actual products have definitely improved greatly.
Beauty Is Pain
This ad was released in 1890 and it promotes a painful-looking “Chin Reducer and Beautifier”. We’re rather sure that no one would be looking to buy such a product nowadays, no matter how many double chins it may or may not reduce.
Girl-Sized Pens
One biological difference between men and women that we’ve never actually seen reference to is the size of their hands. We don’t know about you, but it’s not something we normally think about. However, it looks like that wasn’t always the case.
Girl Sized Pens
This ad from 1965 promoted a product designed for petite women’s hands. If an ad like this were to run today, it would not go over well with the general public, that’s for sure. Most of us know that this difference is not significant enough to require different-sized pens.
I Wish I Were A Man
A lot of the time, the military’s advertising methods involved all kinds of slogans in the effort to encourage people to enlist and join them. It looks like one method they used in the past – for a long time – was to shame men into joining the army.
I Wish I Were A Man
Nowadays, we can’t help but laugh at ads like these. After all, there are countless women who are currently serving in the army and doing fantastically. Not to mention, the same goes for the Navy as well.
Wife-Saving Oven
Throughout the 1900s, advertising companies directed a large portion of their ads towards women when it came to household appliances and goods. This made sense at the time – according to them, only women would be using products like those. Naturally, that made them their target audience.
Wife Saving Oven
While women did use these products, and still do these days, we can all safely say that equality in the kitchen has come a long way since these ads were released. What used to be known as a ‘wifesaver’ would be directed towards anyone today, not just women.
Simple Cars
While most people don’t need this much convincing when it comes to buying a car, car manufacturers advertised things like this rather often for a while back in the day. In the 1960s, this ad was released and as you can see, it was directed towards women.
Simple Cars
It claimed that the Mini automatic in the ad was so simple to operate that even women would be able to use it! It was designed to be simple, after all. Thankfully, car ads have come a long way since this one came out.
Shave Yourself
There are some advertisements that should have passed some kind of official board before getting released to the general public. More often than not, we are seriously confused about how these advertisements made it to the public.
Shave Yourself
How could have anyone thought this would be successful? This is the perfect example of that. This brand decided to advertise their razor with a baby, who clearly has no need for the product. Not to mention, it’s dangerous, no matter how safe they claim the razor to be.
That’s What Wives Are For
While household appliances are obviously advertised these days, we can all agree that most of their selling success is not thanks to the marketing behind them. It’s more so due to their efficiency, quality, and productivity.
That’s What Wives Are For
Well, back in the day, ads like these were released, focusing on the popular stereotype that women were the only ones who belonged in the kitchen. Of course, nowadays, things are rather different in this case.
Catch Your Man
It’s a known fact that nowadays, women don’t have to get married in order to be validated as a human being. Nice, right? Well, ads in the past played on the idea that women had to find themselves a man in order to succeed as a woman. Or rather, as a wife.
Catch Your Man
This ad, for example, shows that the only thing a woman would need to do to “catch” a man is put out a plate of delicious donuts in front of him and he’ll be all hers! It’s truly as simple as that. Note the ball and chain she’s holding…
Men Are Better Than Women
Whoever designed this ad in 1959 just threw all subtlety straight out the window. While a lot of these vintage ads were rather suggestive and subtle in their insults towards women and stereotypes, this one went straight for it, saying men are better than women. Their reason? Women are only useful indoors.
Men Are Better Than Women
With that said, only men can have any use for sweaters. One thing we can say for sure is that an ad like this simply wouldn’t run nowadays. There would be an overwhelming amount of criticism. We’d go so far as saying we don’t know if the brand would make it through a scandal like that.
The Youngest Customers
In 1955, it seems that it was acceptable for babies to drink soda regularly. This ad showcases an 11-month old baby who is supposedly one of Seven Up’s ‘youngest customers’ drinking a soda of theirs.
The Youngest Customers
In fact, they say that the best way for parents to get their babies to drink their milk is by mixing it with some soda. Nowadays, advertisements for sodas are directed towards adults, as they should be, if we’re being honest.
The Best Things In Life
We’ve all heard the famous saying, “the best things in life are free”, but have you ever heard “the best things in life come in cellophane”? Yeah, we didn’t think so. While it’s a cute slogan that’s rather catchy, the brand could have gone with many other options for their ads – maybe some chocolate?
The Best Things In Life
It turns out that an inanimate object wasn’t going to cut it for this brand. Instead, they decided to use a baby in the advertisement. It seems very questionable to us, to say the least. Who would think of something like this?
A Cute Wife
Vitamins are known to enhance people’s health and overall well-being. After all, it is an essential component our bodies need to function, which makes sense. Well, companies still feel the need to advertise this product, even today. However, this ad from the mid-1900s had a different approach.
A Cute Wife
They didn’t want to focus on the health aspect of the product, oh no. Instead, they focused on wives wanting to look ‘cute’ for their husbands. Of course, that was the most important thing at the time – even more so than health, apparently.
Smart Mothers
These days, parents know full-well how their kids typically react to sugary candy and sweets. It causes their energy levels to spike and then fall suddenly later on. In the past, however, this company had a different approach.
Smart Mothers
They had a positive view on the high levels of sugar candy contains. This ad suggested that good parents would get their kids plenty of candy – after all, kids need the energy the sugar gives them! We are more than relieved that we know better these days.
Wrong Deodorant
Just about everyone – or rather, we hope so – wears deodorant. They typically base their choice on experience among other things they take into account. The smell, feel, and price, to name a few. For the most part, deodorant companies rely on returning customers.
Wrong Deodorant
That’s why they don’t have to advertise so much. However, things were very different in the past. This particular company decided to let the women out there know that their charms will get them nowhere without the correct deodorant.
Free For Chubbies
As we all know, people come in so many different shapes and sizes. While the world is still accepting this fact, there would be some serious backlash id an ad like this was released today. Calling people “chubby” is completely out of line. Clearly, that wasn’t the case back in the 1960s.
Free For Chubbies
This company had no problem at all releasing this ad. They advertised their products to people who happened to be larger than “regular sizes”. We’re just happy the world has evolved since this happened – it’s messed up.
The Secret To A Successful Marriage
It seems like Pyrex has been around forever. They make strong solid glass cookware. While that’s true, their advertising used to be very different, unfortunately. This ad claims that a marriage is at its best in the kitchen, displaying a woman in wedding attire cooking.
The Secret To A Successful Marriage
We have so many questions after seeing this advertisement. How is her dress intact and not in flames after being in such close proximity to a hot oven? She’s not paying attention – she’s too busy looking at her husband rather than the piping hot dish in her hand.
Goodbye Depression!
Everyone can relate to drinking some wine when we’re feeling down. However, this ad claims that wine is the cure for depression. It might cheer you up slightly for a little while, but wine is most definitely not the answer to such a problem.
Goodbye Depression!
Drinking occasionally can be nice, but just imagine if wine labels began claiming that they were remedies for mental health problems! It would not go over well at all. There are so many problems with that, we can’t even begin to cover everything.
DDT
Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane is rather difficult to pronounce, so we’re just going to call it by its abbreviation, DDT. It’s a chemical insecticide that has no color, scent, or taste that used to be popular years ago. Everyone thought it was harmless, but it turns out they were very, very wrong.
DDT
Nowadays, we know about the terrible impact DDT had on the environment. This ad showed DDT as a safer and healthier cleaning agent for the house. Today we know how false that claim was. Not to mention, this chemical used to be used in dairy, veggie, and meat products. Yikes.
Emergency Laziness
KFC is a fast-food chain that’s been around for quite some time. Their advertising is really a force to be reckoned with. We haven’t met too many people who would say no to fried chicken for dinner, and fast-food is always an appealing option.
Emergency Laziness
This ad plays on the stereotype of women having the role of providing dinner for their men. Of course, KFC offers itself as an alternative for those times when the women are simply too tired to cook dinner.
Is She Pretty?
This advertisement showcases a beautiful woman sitting by her vanity looking back at the camera with a playful expression. The text claims that men are more interested in the way women look than anything else like intelligence, wit, and more.
Is She Pretty
Today, we would beg to differ. However, back when this ad came out, these kinds of controversial and demanding statements were, sadly, a common thing in ads and in life overall. Aren’t you glad they aren’t anymore?
A Man’s World
While we aren’t completely sure about what this advertisement is actually promoting, what we do know is that it shows a woman praying to her own husband – if you remove the food from the image. Either way, it’s not a good photo overall.
A Man’s World
All the same, we can’t help but feel a little curious as to what guidelines or limits ads had at the time this one was made. Overall, ads seemed to be very, well, wrong. Well, the only good thing about this ad is that it no longer exists.
The Ultimate Goal
Everyone knows that doing housework is one way to keep moving and work up a sweat while being productive. However, this advertisement makes it look like losing weight, and doing housework are the most important things that a woman could ever do in her life.
The Ultimate Goal
In fact, they’re promoting a cereal that they claim will give women enough energy to accomplish these crucial goals. Today, a commercial like this one would not be received well. That is – if it ever got the green light to be published at all.
Slide Projector
A lot of times, you can find all kinds of advertisements that use beauty to promote and sell their products. These days, it’s done quite a lot still, but with a little more subtlety and tact than they used to back in the day.
Slide Projector
This ad from 1959 is promoting a color slide projector. You would never guess that if you didn’t have the text to explain it to you, right? Sabrina takes up all the attention. It’s almost as if the projector was thrown in as an afterthought.
The Best Thing About Air Travel
Lots of us know how airlines always do their best to give good service along with reasonable ticket pricing. Seeing as most airlines use their destinations, onboard comfort, or prices as selling points, it’s hard to think what else could be used to sell flights.
The Best Thing About Air Travel
Back in the day, airlines decided to focus on their flight attendants rather than anything else to sell more tickets. Who wouldn’t want to be confined on an airplane with a beautiful stewardess for a few hours?
Breakfast Pills
Here we have an advertisement that was designed to promote nausea medication that pregnant women could take. Of course, the target audience for this ad is women, it only makes sense. They would take these pills to make their lives a little easier during pregnancy.
Breakfast Pills
Well, it’s rather absurd to see that this ad targeted men, of all people. They were promised a delicious home-cooked breakfast once again since their wives will be able to get back on their feet after taking this medication! How wonderful!
Men Are Funny
This ad seems to imply that infidelity is rather common among men and might even be considered to be “funny”. It warns women that if they do nothing to fix their bad breath, it’s possible their husbands will be with another woman shortly.
Men Are Funny
Today, this would never fly. Aside from the very obvious fact that cheating is an awful thing to do, bad breath wouldn’t cause such things. Here, however, it looks like the only thing worth condoning is bad breath that could be fixed with a mint.
The Perfect Pregnancy Gift
We can’t help but feel for Jean. Instead of being able to deal with her pregnancy, she had to have her mind occupied by nothing more than new cleaning appliances. It turns out that her husband is more intent on coming home to clean clothes than ensuring Jean is comfortable during this time.
The Perfect Pregnancy Gift
He thinks buying her a new washer and dryer would make him the best husband. We have a feeling that him doing a load of laundry himself would be a better idea and much more useful. Sigh, those times were intense.
Buying The Pants
Whoever came up with this tagline definitely thought they were hilarious, we’re sure of it. They used pants as a literal part of the slogan. Back in the 1940s, it looks like it was the norm for women to buy their husbands clothes despite the fact that they weren’t the ones to ‘wear the pants’.
Buying The Pants
Today, this saying wouldn’t work anymore seeing as marriages are a lot more equal than they used to be in the 1940s. We can’t even imagine what would happen if an ad like this would be released now.
Happiness Is A Hoover
In the past, men were truly romantic, especially with their Christmas gifts. They put a lot of thought into their gifts. After all, who would want something like jewelry or something sentimental when they could get something to care for their home?
Happiness Is A Hoover
According to them, the perfect gift would be nothing but a brand new vacuum – a Hoover, at that. At least they didn’t recommend the men buy just any vacuum, they went straight for the brand name one.
It’s The Little Things
This woman looks like the ultimate wife, organizing a full picnic for her and her husband in the park. And yet, the only thing the husband can focus on is the fact that he’s bothered by her outfit since her skirt has so many gaps that need a fastener!
It’s The Little Things
Why can’t he just sit back and enjoy the sun? Appreciate the sandwich his wife worked so hard to make? No, no, the wardrobe malfunction is the top priority for this man. He simply can’t take his mind off it!
Luring Men In
This ad is ruthless. It threatens women who don’t use breath mints that the “attractive women he meets during the day” most likely do. That’s when the game is over for the wife. Her husband is as good as gone.
Luring Men In
We see a woman and her web, waiting to ensnare a man. If it were up to us, we would avoid any woman with spiderwebs, even if she had minty breath. But we can’t speak for anyone else, really. Everyone’s different, after all.
Where She Belongs
This ad is rather telling in how much we as a society have progressed when it comes to stereotyping and shaming women in general. While there’s still a long way to go, we’re glad we aren’t at this point anymore. This ad is trying to promote shoes. How you may ask?
Where She Belongs
Well, it says that women will be so impressed by the man’s choice of shoe that they’ll be at their feet – literally. As women should be – at men’s feet. Yes, we’re disgusted by this ad, too. It’s awful to think about how these ads ever existed, but we’re grateful they don’t anymore.
French Ads
Here we have an ad that is nothing more than bizarre, rather than offensive. It’s a French advertisement for sausages, which could explain it a little. There’s a good chance things are done differently in France, but we aren’t sure.
French Ads
One this is certain: creepy ads like this one would not go so well these days anywhere – including France. We can’t help but feel rather grateful for that. Who would want to eat sausage after seeing this poster?
Doctor’s Order
Along with offensive stereotypes, people’s perception of cigarettes was way off back in the day. It used to be very common for people to smoke – young, and old alike, no matter what. Everyone had their favorite cigarette brand.
Doctor’s Order
As a matter of fact, if you didn’t smoke, you weren’t cool. It was as simple as that. This ad explains that the cigarette brand of choice for doctors was Camel. Now that’s definitely not something you’d hear nowadays, that’s for sure.
Just Like The Doctor Prescribed
We can’t imagine a time when doctors would encourage people to smoke cigarettes, but here we are. At the time this ad came out, doctors were doing just that. Camel released this ad, claiming doctors favored the brand.
Just Like The Doctor Prescribed
Today, obviously, doctors do just the opposite and tell everyone to stop smoking since it causes so many dangerous health problems. It’s strange to think that in the past, doctors were into smoking.
Blow In Her Face
It doesn’t take too many brain cells to realize that blowing smoke directly in someone’s face is not the least bit enticing. Quite the opposite, actually, it’s very rude. It seems that whoever came up with the idea for this ad hasn’t quite realized this yet.
Blow In Her Face
This ad suggests that aside from the fact that women supposedly like smoke being blown in their faces, they find it attractive. We seriously don’t understand how this was considered to be a turn on at the time.
Santa’s Favorite Smoke
Whenever we see any cigarette ads these days, it’s normally designed to deter people from smoking at all. Back in the day, cigarette ads were honestly pretty weird, like this one of Santa Clause enjoying a cigarette.
Santa’s Favorite Smoke
It seems rather unrealistic, wouldn’t you say? Everyone knows that Santa would need strong lungs to fly all over the world with a sack full of presents. Smoking cigarettes would take too serious of a toll on him.
Is It Always Illegal?
We’ve seen some disturbing ads on this list so far, but this one just might be the most disturbing of all. The question here is pretty messed up. Obviously, it was part of the story that followed, but it doesn’t exactly make it any better.
Is It Always Illegal
Not to mention, the story itself is not the least bit nice – it’s about a businessman who’s had enough of one of the women who’s working for him. We’re not all that sure about how legal it is to kill women has anything to do with selling a postage meter.