When examining a situation like this, my normal reaction would be, “here we go, what now?” If someone were to tell me a women’s tennis tournament was forced to change their advertising slogan because it could be viewed as sexist, I would probably laugh and be anxious to hear the details. However when you’re right, you’re right.
The Rogers Cup, Canada’s most hyped women’s tennis tournament, recently had to alter it’s marketing campaign because of a sexist slogan. Apparently there were a lot of people who took offense to one of the posters which read, “come for the ladies, stay for the legends.” The legends that are being referenced are John McEnroe and Andre Agassi, who will be playing in a bonus tournament at the same event.
The slogan has since been changed to a more appropriate “making history, re-living history.” Like I said, eight times out of ten a situation like this stems from an overreaction. In this case it’s tough to argue the original slogan could be taken offensively. Whether they intended to or not, the Rogers Cup was definitely selling sex with the “come for the ladies” bit. They also made it sound like “ladies” and “legends” were two completely unrelated things.
Sex sells until you get caught doing it and someone makes you change it.
