Sexist ad offends netizens

PETALING JAYA: A sexist advertisement allegedly created for Borders Malaysia has ruffled the feathers of netizens, who have taken to Facebook and Twitter to criticise the ad.

However Borders Malaysia denies all knowledge of the ad.

The advertisement depicts the same woman with six different spouses with the tagline 'It's time you learn to cook' beneath it.

"Sexist." said Lainey Yeoh.

"If I saw (the ad) in a bookstore I wouldn't understand what it was selling," posted Catalina Rembuyan.

"Borders are still operating in Malaysia?" asked Jin Hien Lau, to which Facebooker Tshiung Han See replied "Not for long?"

Freelance writer Sharon Bakar (@sharonbakar) tweeted "Borders Malaysia's sexist cookbook ad gets international attention, and deservedly so,", while Matthew Leu (@matthewleu) commented "Well done McCann Erickson Malaysia, haha."

Stephen O'Donnell (@stephenOD) retweeted a photograph of the advertisement, adding "wow, impressively antiquated."

Borders Malaysia's publicist Liza Ramli denied any involvement with the advertisement, saying that McCann Erickson Malaysia had ceased to be Borders' agency for more than two years now.

"We have no knowledge of this particular ad, it was neither shown to nor approved by us. Besides, advertising is not our primary medium of communication. The idea does not sit with our brand values at all and would not see the light of day under our watch," she told The Star Online. 

She added that McCann Erickson's previous work had "always respected the brand". 

Despite repeated calls to McCann Erickson's local office in PJ, nobody was available for comment.

The ad made waves online after being featured on popular viral content site Buzzfeed  by content producer @copyranter, a copywriter who is popular online for his incisive comments regarding ad campaigns. 

Buzzfeed, who credited the picture to adsoftheworld.com, dubbed it "the most sexist ad of the summer".