Tone Deaf Harmon/Kardon Ad Suggested Women Shouldn’t Be Listened To

“Women just make noise and ruin everything, right? Buy our fucking ridiculously expensive headphones!” pic.twitter.com/kZ0c4y91q4

— dan solomon (@dansolomon) November 25, 2015

This ad for harmon/kardon’s noise-cancelling headphones is so… tone deaf. It features an image of their “soho” headphones with the names of the Beatles inside the cans with Yoko on the outside. There’s a similar image in the campaign with Kurt on the inside and Courtney on the outside, referring to Cobain and Love, respectively.

It seems like the ads suggest to people, “Hey, you should listen to these dudes, forget these other women that totally ruined their work and everything they’ve ever done.” It’s disgusting that ads like these can make it past what is sure to be multiple teams of people and not one person says, “Uh… this isn’t cool.” It’s like these ads came straight out of Mad Men.

I know.

To their credit, harmon/kardon has announced they’re pulling the ads. They were apparently only running in a few local markets, so it’s possible these ads didn’t get much exposure.

@dansolomon You’re right. These ads don’t live up to our standards or reflect our values. [1/2]

— Harman Kardon (@HarmanKardon) November 25, 2015

@dansolomon We’ve requested they be removed in the local market they are running. [2/2]

— Harman Kardon (@HarmanKardon) November 25, 2015

Still… I can’t believe that they paid for this. Maybe that’s why their headphones are so expensive.

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