UK Prohibits Cheese Ad for Harmful Gender Stereotypes

The U.K. Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has upheld a complaint that a television advertisement “perpetuated a harmful stereotype by suggesting that men were incapable of caring for children and would place them at risk as a result of their incompetence.” The ad showed a father leaving a baby in a carrier on a conveyor belt as he examined his food options, including Philadelphia cream cheese products. Mondelez argued that it showed two men caring for their children and “took care to ensure the babies were not shown to be coming to any harm.” ASA found the arguments persuasive, but it noted that the commercial featured the mother handing the child to the father at the beginning and the father saying “Let’s not tell mum” to the child at the end. In this context, ASA found, “we considered the ad relied on the stereotype that men were unable to care for children as well as women and implied that the fathers had failed to look after the children properly because of their gender.”