Favourite Automobile Advertisements: 1967 Mercury Cougar

1967 Mercury Cougar, Mercury, The Man's Car — 1967 Mercury Cougar

You’d suppose {that a} retailer would do something in its energy to keep away from alienating its prospects. Any prospects. Watch a TV industrial at this time and also you’ll usually see a calculated smattering of actors from a broad vary of ethnicities, and, that is key, each genders.

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1967 Mercury Cougar

We all know from the latest Bud Mild debacle that enjoying to a particular ingredient of your viewers can have surprising ramifications, on this case, offending different purchaser teams. And, typically, that’s simply one thing a enterprise group has to, or at the very least ought to, stay with.

However think about an organization—let’s say a automotive firm—being so daring as to deliberately write off half of its potential buyer base in a daring play for the opposite half. Sound loopy? As a result of that’s precisely what Mercury did in 1967.

For 1967 the Mercury division of the Ford Motor Firm adopted a brand new marketing campaign, and in doing so just about eradicated girls from its purchaser base. The “Mercury, it’s a Man’s Automobile” marketing campaign lasted only one mannequin yr, however didn’t do the hurt a contemporary, enlightened advertising and marketing sort might need predicted.

Taming the Fairer Intercourse: Traditional Automobile Advertisements and Submissive Ladies

Certainly, given the boldness of the tagline, the advert copy was surprisingly bereft of sexism. The Cougar advert seen right here, which introduces the top-trim-level XR-7, says virtually nothing gender particular, although means that cool gauges and large engines are of better attraction to these of us burdened with a Y chromosome.

Although Mercury pulled the plug on the Man’s Automobile factor for 1968, it didn’t endure on account of its advertising and marketing misogyny. Certainly, in a down yr, Mercury truly picked up market share. That stated, the model’s 1968 marketing campaign was way more feminine inclusive, with girls figuring closely in most of its print and TV adverts.

As for the Cougar, was it a “man’s automotive?” Sure, given the heavy emphasis on energy and efficiency, historically male-preferred automotive attributes. However we suspect the automotive’s clear look, tidy dimensions, and customarily sporty character would attraction to virtually any 1967 shopper with the cash to buy a Mercury.

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