My first thought was that it couldn’t possibly be real.
Life insurance firm Polly.co.uk decided, inexplicably, to insult their entire target market with an advert that felt so tone-deaf to me, it beggared belief.
Posted on Facebook and littered with infantilising emojis, the message called on women to stop putting off taking out life insurance, claiming ‘mums be like’ they couldn’t afford it.
I thought times were changing after attempts to crackdown on the gender stereotyping we have seen in ads where it was only ever mums portrayed cooking and cleaning – in 2019 the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) brought in a ban on it after declaring sexist portrayals were ‘limiting people’s potential.’
Surely a company boasting the tagline ‘Made for Mums’ and whose business model revolves around women wouldn’t have produced something dripping with sexism.
This was a joke, right? Maybe it was intended to be but, unfortunately, I was not laughing.
Incredulous, I read on. Because women are obviously too stupid to understand complicated, lofty, manly things like money, they helpfully explained that we could get life cover with them for the price of just three coffees a month. Thankfully, more emojis were used here, just to make sure we really got it.
As if the condescending use of emoticons wasn’t enough, alongside the implication that women only spend their money on ‘s***’ like clothes and makeup, the idea that we’re incapable of making life decisions more taxing than whether to get an Americano or a latte, put the tin lid on it for me.
I not only found it deeply offensive, it is also completely untrue – across the country it is overwhelmingly women who manage the household budgets. We are perfectly able to grasp the concept of cost and factor it into our spending.
And why on earth should we be criticised for spending our own money on clothes, anyway?
As a mum to two children aged seven and five, life insurance is definitely something on my mind – being out of action or even dead would be devastating for my family, both emotionally and financially.
According to Polly.co.uk themselves, every 22 minutes a child in the UK loses a parent they depend on financially and yet only 12% of mothers have any kind of life insurance in place, which would protect their family.
This is a serious topic and deserves serious attention. Let’s forget for a minute about the rampant misogyny and question whether, especially given the times we are living through, life insurance should be discussed in such a light-hearted manner at all.
How many businesses would address their male customers with such contempt? I think we know the answer to that. Humour is fine but there’s always a line and the Polly ad has crossed it – it feels like a mask has slipped and they’ve revealed what they really think of their customers.
Of course, women being treated disparagingly by advertisers (or even not considered at all) is nothing new. We are routinely patronised, typecast and harmed by the reinforcement of damaging stereotypes.
Earlier this year the Government withdrew its gobsmackingly out of touch Stay At Home advert from social media platforms after a backlash over the cartoons depicting women doing the housework, home-schooling and childcare while the only male character was shown relaxing on the sofa.
There was the ill-judged NatWest ad in 2019, which saw the bank pen a mansplainy open letter ‘to all women’, apologising (ironically enough) for ignoring its female customers in the past.
Actors, dressed up as old-fashioned bankers complete with pinstripe suits and bowler hats, were hired to hand out the missive, signed by ‘Mr Banker’ alongside Stylist magazine at train stations across London in a stunt that went down like a lead balloon.
Women don’t want vague apologies from anonymous bankers (used here as rhyming slang, btw). We want equal pay, seats in boardrooms and a fair crack of the whip when it comes to securing business loans.
We also want to be communicated with like adults. The Sheilas’ Wheels car insurance ads from a few years back ground my gears because it made no secret of the fact they believed women would buy financial products if they are marketed in garish pink.
Advertisers have a responsibility. We know that women have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic, they have lost or been forced to quit their jobs in greater numbers and have borne the brunt of the childcare and home-schooling.
But we should be fighting against this unacceptable imbalance and the messaging seeping into our children’s impressionable minds. We’re certainly not going to win the battle when even the Government is legitimising these norms.
And companies like Polly.co.uk, whose whole raison d’etre is women, should know this better than anyone.
That said, however, their patronising little ad has one positive effect on me, although not the one they were hoping for. It’s put life insurance in my head as a high-priority and made me sit down and research my options, something I’ve been meaning to do for a while but have kept putting off.
Knowing my children will be secure if the worst happens will give me peace of mind. But I won’t be going with a company who thinks I’m too frivolous to protect my family and that I need serious subjects dumbed down for my little lady brain to cope with.
Metro.co.uk have approached Polly.co.uk for comment.
Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing angela.pearson@metro.co.uk.
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