OAA Apologise for "Career Women Make Bad Mothers" Campaign

[OAA]

The OAA are running a campaign to demonstrate the power of outdoor advertising to drive people online. This is being done in conjunction with a new website called ?Britainthinks.com? which encourages debate amongst the people of Britain.

We regret any misunderstanding that led to feelings of offence on the part of members of the Mumsnet community.

The intention of the website is to generate debate by posing questions that are deemed to be socially relevant by members of society.

We did not intend to cause any offence and we would stress that the questions posed were not the opinions of the OAA or any of its members.

Three posters were designed to initiate the debate using sport, life and politics and these are supported by dozens of other questions on the website itself.

Regrettably the question relating to ?career women? has caused offence and the OAA unreservedly apologises to anyone who has been offended. This was not our intention and, to ensure that this misunderstanding does not persist, instructions have been given to remove this poster.

Subject to the vagaries of the weather, all copy will be removed as soon as possible. The sites currently carrying this poster will be either blanked-out or carry one of the other designs. The poster will also be removed from the ?Britainthinks.com? website. All Digital posters have already been removed.

[FlightAttendant]

Now that's more like it

[atlantis]

There's your poster for you ; The power of the internet mumsnet make us remove poster!!

[Metella]

Fantastic news!!

[itchyandscratchy]

fabulous.
fair enough
apol accepted (by me at least)

[eastendmummy]

Fantastic! Whoever at the OAA believed that people would not be offended by this statement obviously doesn't live in the real world.

[wahwah]

Hooray! Another step closer to a world fit for our daughters. Well done, chaps.

[Ivykaty44]

well done girls...

[Metella]

Okay - this slogan is still on the BritainThinks website - NOT good.

[LadyBlaBlah]

Is that genuine??

[mrsbaldwin]

Gosh.

Great news!

I will call OAA to check this is genuine.

And after that write another post.

[mrsbaldwin]

I just called the OAA to confirm that the statement is genuine.

The lady that answers the phone there says that it is genuine, reporting: 'although I didn't write the statement I was the one who posted it on Mumsnet'.

I asked to speak to Bill Wilson, Director of Operations - she said he had gone home early because of the snow and asked if I could call back tomorrow. I said I would do that.

If the adverts come down online/are covered over in RL then that is a result and the emailing can (in my view anyway) be laid to rest/apology accepted and so on.

It would be good to speak to Mr Wilson, however, because whilst online is easy, RL is in practice more difficult especially in the snow.

What do others who have written emails feel about this?

[LadyBlaBlah]

I suspect it is not since the weather does not affect the removal of the slogan from the website...............it is still there

[Harriedandflustered]

Mrs B - I think this is fantastic news. And all of it engineered and driven by you.

I wonder about the sanity sensitivity of the OAA for having put the advert out in the first place, but at least they have reconsidered. I think the weather permitting thing is okay in principle.

[treacletart]

not there now -

[edam]

Missed the original thread but sounds like this decision is well overdue. says here was dreamed up by someone called Garry Lace - think he should come on here himself and apologise.

Apart from anything else, 'career women' is such an outmoded term. FGS.

[chocolatejunkie]

Been following this thread with interest. Well done everyone, especially MrsB. DH has just emailed me this link to an advertising trade press article

www.mediaweek.co.uk/news/bulletin/mediapm/article/975990/?DCMP=EMC-MediaPMBulletin

[LadyBlaBlah]

Apparently it is a genuine backtrack apology - Mrs B has confirmed it with the OAA

[GetOrfMoiLand]

Well done Mrs B.

[GhoulsAreLoud]

Oh wow, well done guys, that's brilliant!

[policywonk]

Bloody hell, well done girls.

Now stop mucking about on the internet and go and get the dinner on.

[HerBeatitude]

ROFL at the comment on the mediaweek site - mumsnet = third reich

[wahwah]

Thanks for the link. I see that Gary Lacey still doesn't get it. Perhaps he can explain the thinking process behind choosing the 'career women' slogan rather than something equally ridiculous about another 'minority' group. Or perhaps he can't. Pillock.

[fridayschild]

Well done to the power of mumsnet and also to the OAA. I saw the poster this morning and would have been cross for ages had I not seen the mumsnet thread.

[squeaver]

Oh I missed all this, but well done. Good work all round.

Thought you might all want to know that I have met Gary Lace professionally and he is exactly the type of twunt that you would expect him to be.