Carlton Draught offers women the night off from doing their partners’ ironing
Carlton promo girls iron shirts | Source: Imperial Hotel Facebook page
A promotion on behalf of Carlton Draught is offering drinkers’ wives and girlfriends a night off from ironing if they buy a schooner of beer.
The “Laundry Nights” promo sees Carlton Draught promo girls iron shirts for drinkers.
An email promotion sent out on behalf of the Imperial Hotel pub in Paddington, Sydney stated “Give the wife, girlfriend or partner a rest tomorrow night, because the Carlton Draught girls will be in to do your laundry (well your ironing anyway).” The pub says it did not intend the promotion – which began there last night – to be sexist.
The Carlton Draught promotion from The Imperial
While the ad for the promotion above was prepared by the individual pub, it was based on a template provided by the brand. The Carlton Draught promo is due to take place widely over the next six weeks.
A source who was at The Imperial Hotel in Paddington yesterday told Mumbrella the staff were “the usual kind of promo girls”.
Carlton is brewed by CUB. A total of 11 promo agencies are on CUB’s roster and it is unclear which are involved in this promotion. Carlton’s creative agency Clemenger BBDO Melbourne said it was not involved.
A spokesman for Paddington Pub Precinct, which represents the Imperial and eight other hotels in Paddington, told Mumbrella: “This is part of a CUB promotion that Paddington Pub Precinct has embraced to re-engage people with our heritage pubs. It’s about getting people back into the pub. Our intention was not to be sexist, and we’ll be looking in to this.”
A spokesman for CUB told Mumbrella: “As part of getting people back into pubs we’re trialling a promo which offers people the opportunity to ‘get your shirt ironed for free’. We’ve provided participating pubs with a lock up of some creative which can be used by them to encourage people to take part. We’ve seen the ways some of the venues promoted this on Facebook we reckon their words could have better reflected the fact that we all hate ironing.”
The Ad Standards Board’s rules on portrayal of women state: “Advertising or Marketing Communications shall not portray people or depict material in a way which discriminates against or vilifies a person or section of the community on account of race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, age, sexual preference, religion, disability, mental illness or political belief.
“Advertising or marketing communications should not employ sexual appeal in a manner which is exploitative and degrading of any individual or group of people.”
At least I now know which beer I’m *not* drinking at the pub tonight.
User ID not verified.
Where does the poster state it’s targeted at women? If it was, there would be promo *guys* not girls doing the ironing.
This just reinforces the fantasy of the fuckwits that Carlton is targeting.
User ID not verified.
Which genius came up with this nonsense??
User ID not verified.
The pub didn’t intend the promotion to be sexist? Really? Doh!
User ID not verified.
“Give the wife, girlfriend or partner a rest tomorrow night, because the Carlton Draught girls will be in to do your laundry (well your ironing anyway).” Maybe they should have had a promo guy there doing the ironing for women too? Even though it is targetted to men, that would have stopped any complainers.
User ID not verified.
Am a woman, don’t iron and now looks like I also don’t drink Carlton.
User ID not verified.
Do I bring the shirt with me or do I take it off in the pub? (‘Cause after too many Carlton Draughts I’ve got flabby man-boobs and don’t particularly want to get them out in public.)
User ID not verified.
i am pretty sure that they knew what they were doing when they opened this can of worms…
User ID not verified.
what an utter piece of crap, sexist, off target advertising!
User ID not verified.
Calm down, its just a pr stunt – faux sexism to incite some media and social outrage and get the Carlton name in front of a few thousand eyeballs
User ID not verified.
This campaign was specifically targetted at Mumbrella readers so Carlton are going to be gutted with this feedback…
User ID not verified.
Can I bring something else to be ironed?
I like my pants ironed.
Also has anyone tried putting beer in an iron?
User ID not verified.
Welcome back to 1953.
User ID not verified.
C’mon people, since when do we get so sensitive? It’s a piss take on a stereotype. Let’s all calm down.
User ID not verified.
boring and embarressing
User ID not verified.
Female. Beer drinker. Do not own ironing board. Thanks Carlton.
Too many blokes in the marketing department I would suggest.
User ID not verified.
The real question is who irons these days anyways? I sure don’t – my own clothes or my boyfriend’s. I don’t buy clothes that need ironing or work in wanky corporate environs that require me to wear those kind of outfits. Ironing = life fail.
User ID not verified.
This is on the pub, not CUB – there’s nothing sexist about the poster at all.
User ID not verified.
Oh no they didn’t!
User ID not verified.
Ha! The public just likes to get outraged about something. Majority of blokes I know are single and would love to have their shirts ironed. I know a few girls who would too.
User ID not verified.
I didn’t think people in Sydney drank Carlton Draught.
Don’t you all drink Toohey’s???
If that’s the case then it’s probably a dud promo anyway
User ID not verified.
Ps. Shouldn’t this headline read ‘Pub offers women the night off ironing as part of Carlton Draught promotion’. It’d be a little more accurate and less sensationalist. I’m sure CUB aren’t happy with this communication by the pub either.
User ID not verified.
I call Shenanigans on this. Nobody could be stupid enough to think that this wouldn’t cause offence. They are just trying to get people to bite as part of the promo. There is no other explanation.
User ID not verified.
Everybody should bring pleats. That’ll fix ’em.
User ID not verified.
I see faux-outrage is alive and well with the glass half-empty community. What’s the big deal?
User ID not verified.
Did anyone get the “glass half empty” bad pun?
User ID not verified.
wow. we’re a touchy lot aren’t we?
a beer promo targeting blokes offers them the chance to get a shirt ironed for free. seems reasonable.
perhaps a bit cliched of the venue to suggest that most ironing is done by females, but does this constitute “discriminating/vilifying/exploiting or degrading” (as the article’s reference to the code implies?
Hardly.
User ID not verified.
forget putting the beer in the iron, lets just have a wet shirt competition.
User ID not verified.
Was this ad campaign designed in collaboration with Tony Abbott and Alan Jones?
User ID not verified.
Groan…. People who created this campaign: Aside from your own mums, do you actually know any other women out there that iron their bloke’s shirt? CUB Brand Manager – very, very bad and sad call!
User ID not verified.
if I was one of those girls I’d just grab the blokes by the dick and hold it against the iron………………………if my hands weren’t too big.
User ID not verified.
Mmmmm…. Beer…..
User ID not verified.
“OH MY GOD! We had NO IDEA that by creating this campaign, we would be getting mountains of publicity for being sexist… which would inevitably seen by our target market… who are sexist.”
User ID not verified.
Perhaps there should be a competing offer of Free lawnmowing/spider killing/furniture relocating for all the women who buy a Midori? Would that get the same response?
User ID not verified.
I guess there’s going to be a lot of neatly pressed wife-beaters getting around Paddington.
User ID not verified.
Ironing is bad for the environment.
User ID not verified.
Wow, this is the biggest mumbrella expose and consumer outrage since Carlton Draught encouraged ‘unhygienic’ pub activities via an outdoor site talking about the only tap men use at a pub.
Come on people, let’s all have a deep breath and get back to work vs trying to turn this in to something it is not (ie a misognist brand)
User ID not verified.
I love it. I’d drink Carlton all night and have all my husbands shirts ironed. Pissed and ironed shirts. Win win. P.S. the reason I iron my husbands shirts in the first place is he sucks at ironing. P.S.S. he does all the cooking, I suck at cooking.
User ID not verified.
Notice how no one is putting their hand up for this idea? How’s this for a promo?… Give me a pub that’s not full of pissed idiots who expect ‘the wife’ to iron their shirts and I’ll buy all my friends a round of Carlton Draught.
User ID not verified.
if they connect all the irons to one power board this may pose a fire risk… has anyone run through the OH&S related issues from this ad ?
User ID not verified.
Drink Carlton whenever I go out an get a case a week for home. Disappointed the company has decided to paint itself as the beer of boofheads. I don’t fit that category and will have to find myself a new tipple. Disappointing.
User ID not verified.
Well it’s a damn good thing that my other half doesn’t drink beer and irons his own shirts then.
CUB, in what universe did you think this promotion wasn’t sexist? Alan Bond World, perhaps?
User ID not verified.
Look, I’m all agin ugly, degrading sexism, but where has the Aussie sense of humour gone! Do lighten up gang! Have a chuckle, and if it offends talk with your pocket – drink XXXX instead! There’s a challenge!
Now, what’s something the blokes could do? Oh yeah, good at BBQing aren’t they! From a 70 year old Grannie!
User ID not verified.
QUICK! THERE’S A PUB IN THE CBD THAT GIVES GIRLS FREE MANICURES ON FRIDAYS! SHUT THEM DOWN FOR BEING SEXIST! (I forget the name).
The promo we see in the image in the story only seems to mention the girls doing ironing in the notes, unless I’m mistaken? It’s not on the actual poster at all.
User ID not verified.
Buy a beer get your shirt ironed for free! Who likes ironing likes ironing? Nobody. That’s why we have laundry mats. Are we outraged if they employ women to do this? No. Get a grip everyone. Mumbrella desperately low on actual newsworthy stories this Friday me thinks. Well done Carlton for not giving away some cheap rubbish nobody wants, like so many others.
I’ll raise a glass (and then someone iron my husbands shirt) to Anyone actually trying to inject some life back into our Sydney pubs.
User ID not verified.
What does the CUB “Women in Marketing” group think about this?
User ID not verified.
Only problem is, after a night on the beer any shirts that had been ironed won’t look it by the time they get home.
Lighten up folks, there’s enough real sexism out there to get upset about.
User ID not verified.
Are we saying every time there is a picture of 2 people, 1 needs to be male and 1 female?
Both of them also look to be white, should I be offended by this too?
Relax people.
User ID not verified.
‘…didn’t intend it to be sexist’. If you shoot someone in the head then say ‘I didn’t intend to kill him’, how many people would that convince? It IS sexist, and there is no alternate explanation. If CUB had said “We can’t help being sexist.”, on the other hand, most aware people would nod in agreement.
User ID not verified.
@I am the general public – limit one per customer. I seriosuly cannot imagine any bloke taking his shrt off to have it ironed in a pub. I also can’t imagine anything stupider than this stunt.
User ID not verified.
The new VB.
On the back of the Carlton Dry work it may be time for a change.
Lion must be laughing.
User ID not verified.
More than anything, I’m worried about the quality of the ironing offered.. are these girls professional pressers?? As the state of the shirts on the girls in the photos are terrible- creased AND wrinkled. I wouldn’t waste money on a schooey of Carlton for a badly ironed shirt…
User ID not verified.
I think the whole point of this promotion is that people (both men and women) generally dislike ironing, and if given the chance would like someone else to do it for them… I don’t believe there is anything fundamentally wrong with the premise behind the promotion but I agree that it’s execution by the venue in question could have been better… But irrespective of this, I just don’t see how any of this discriminates against or vilifies women… And it is certainly not misogynistic (which by definition is the hatred of women)…
User ID not verified.
Usually love the Carlton ads – but this has taken them down a notch in my books
User ID not verified.
How annoying, Carlton is the cheapest at my local pub. Gutted I’m gonna have to fork out more for a beer that isn’t marketed by complete dicksplashes…. I guess now I know why it’s so cheap.
User ID not verified.
And the most obnoxious comment goes to …Casey! Well done
User ID not verified.
Did a client actually sign this off!
User ID not verified.
Well I’m glad the poster has crop marks.
How else would we know how to trim it with our eyes when it’s displayed online?
User ID not verified.
Sadly, many men are institutionally sexist. We need to change perspectives and the advertising industry can lead the charge.
User ID not verified.
To be frank, I”m kind of sick of people saying ‘lighten up’ when this crap gets out there. I don’t think it’s funny, and what’s more, Carlton used to have such great ads and I thought it was really marketing itself as a beer for the people – not the losers. Well, I won’t be buying another single drop of the stuff, or anything else CUB puts out for that matter. There are too many great beers in Australia that DON’T resort to such marketing tactics, and I’d choose them instead any day.
Oh, and CUB, women drink beer too, and it never, ever pays to reinforce the outdated ideas of the lowest common denominator.
User ID not verified.
Oh, and I thought Casey’s comment was pretty spot on! Ironing is just mind-numbingly boring. Good enough reason to eliminate it from the to-do list.
User ID not verified.