Bic South Africa fails with ad intended to celebrate women

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Bic South Africa meant to celebrate the country’s National Women’s Day, but their ad massively backfired.

According to CNN, the sexist message that got that got them in trouble was the phrase stamped on the ad along with an image of a working woman: “Look like a girl. Act like a lady. Think like a man. Work like a boss.”

Social media users were quick to fly into an outrage over the seemingly sexist message, and brought back memories of when Ellen DeGeneres took on the pen maker for its line of pens made just for women.

Shortly after their initial post, Bic was quick to offer an apology.

“Let’s start out by saying we’re incredibly sorry for offending everybody – that was never our intention, but we completely understand where we’ve gone wrong,” Bic South Africa said on Facebook. “This post should never have gone out.”

Still, the ad is out there, and people are still upset about it.

Perhaps one of the best criticisms, though, was one tweet which flipped the equation on the ad.

“Look like a boy. Act like a man. Think like a woman. Work like a boss,” read the re-worked image, this time with a generic, shadowed man in the foreground.

“I think the litmus test for brands should be if would it work if the roles are reversed. #absurd, isn’t it? #BIC,” JanetBr posted.