Sainsbury’s Tears Down Ad After Inciting Worry For Women’s Safety

On a scale of one to 10, how safe do you feel about taking walks in the dark?

Sainsbury’s might have missed the step to survey the women in its workplace, if not its shoppers, leading to a pushback that has customers accusing the grocery chain of being negligent of female safety.

An in-store advertisement features a woman in a £24 dress with the tagline: “For walks in the park or strolls after dark.”

The copy has garnered over 2.2 million impressions on Twitter, as of the time of writing, after it was shared by Nathalie Gordon, a freelance creative director at communications agency Havas London.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA THEY THINK WE STROLL IN THE DARK HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA pic.twitter.com/apzx88JcZQ

— Nathalie Gordon (@awlilnatty) January 12, 2023

So @sainsburys , was there no woman in the building to cross check if this was OK? #facepalm pic.twitter.com/cFuv3p08tn

— Frederico Roberto (@Frederiko) January 12, 2023

“If you’re a person who likes walking/strolling at night and feel safe doing so, I’m genuinely happy for you,” Gordon writes. However, she cites that “there are a lot of well-documented studies, reports, and research that has been done around the safety of women.”

In June 2021, the UK’s Office for National Statistics reported that “one in two” women felt unsafe walking alone after dark near their homes.

Gordon continues: “If you feel like they do not represent your lived experience, then you are lucky.” The creative director asserts that people who don’t relate with the gravity of the campaign can simply move along instead of discrediting real experiences.

Writer Anna Wharton comments: “Luckily [the woman’s] hand is cropped out so you can’t see her white knuckles where she is gripping her keys between her fingers.”

“Strolling in the park after dark? In a dress? Alone?” questions author Natali Simmonds. “I bet there was at least one woman in the team who said something and was ignored.”

Following these comments and many other similar ones, Sainsbury has removed the signage and apologized.

“We’re sorry that due to the design, some customers found this sign to be inappropriate,” a spokesperson tells members of the press. The representative adds that Sainsbury’s will work with its partnering agency to prevent such campaigns from being made again.

It wasn’t this long ago that a marketing endeavor in the UK received similar complaints for depicting a woman wandering out in the dark. In April last year, Samsung aired a television and cinema commercial of a female character waking up at 2am and going for a run with her smartwatch and wireless earbuds.

“Sleep at night. Run faster. Push harder. Follow the herd. Not for me—I run on a different schedule. Mine,” a voiceover narrated in the Samsung spot.

While the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority received dozens of complaints from viewers who had recalled tragedies beginning with women being alone outside at night, the board felt that the Samsung commercial didn’t warrant a ban. Regardless, Samsung agreed to remove the advertisement.

[via Campaign UK and Sky News, images via various sources]