14 Vintage Ads That Are Totally Unacceptable Now
These vintage ads show just how much advertising used to normalize sexism, violence, racism, and body-shaming in ways that now feel shockingly tone-deaf and dangerous.
- Alyana Aguja
- 5 min read
Looking back at vintage advertisements reveals more than just changing fashion — it uncovers how brands once reinforced harmful stereotypes and normalized toxic behavior. Many of these ads promoted misogyny, racism, and unhealthy ideals under the guise of humor or progress. Today, they stand as cultural artifacts of a time when ethics were often left out of the pitch meeting.
1. Tipalet Cigarettes: “Blow in her face and she’ll follow you anywhere.”
Image from Wikipedia
This 1960s ad features a man blowing cigarette smoke directly into a woman’s face, with a tagline that treats coercion as charm. It’s jarring now to see seduction equated with something as intrusive and harmful as blowing smoke. The underlying message was that women are objects to be won over, not people to respect, which is part of what makes this so disturbing today.
2. Chase & Sanborn Coffee: “If your husband ever finds out…”
Image from Wikipedia
This 1950s ad shows a man spanking his wife because she bought the wrong coffee. The text implies it’s her fault, and the punishment is justified. It plays domestic violence off as humor, something unimaginable for any brand today.
3. Doctor-endorsed cigarettes: “More doctors smoke Camels…”
Image from Wikipedia
This ad from the 1940s shows physicians happily puffing away, claiming Camels are the preferred cigarette of medical professionals. It’s hard to fathom now, especially given how many lives have been lost to tobacco-related illness. The trust in science was co-opted to sell something deadly.
4. Kleenex’s “The Lonely Little Boy” Campaign
Image from Wikipedia
This 1960s print ad paints a story of a boy who’s socially isolated — until he starts using Kleenex. The implication is that cleanliness (and by extension, good products) can erase deeper emotional or psychological issues. It’s a deeply manipulative ad, using childhood loneliness as a sales hook.
5. Pond’s Cold Cream: “She’s engaged! (She used Pond’s!)”
Image from Wikipedia
The underlying idea is that a woman’s value is in her ability to attract a man. Pond’s ads from the 1920s and ‘30s tied a woman’s worth directly to her beauty and marital status. It’s a crystal-clear example of how advertising once preyed on gender roles and societal expectations.
6. Life Savers: “Is it always illegal to kill a woman?”
Image from Wikipedia
This 1960 ad shows a frustrated man holding Life Savers, suggesting they help keep him from lashing out at his wife. The dark humor falls flat now, with domestic violence never considered a joking matter. The ad is almost surreal in its mix of violence and candy.
7. Alcoa Aluminum: “You mean a woman can open it?”
Image from Wikipedia
Selling a twist-top bottle cap in the 1950s, this ad mocks women’s strength — or lack thereof. The sexism isn’t subtle: it implies that ease of use is only remarkable when a woman can manage it. Today, it reads like a parody of misogyny.
8. Brylcreem: “Watch out! The girls’ll get you!”
Image from Wikipedia
This 1950s hair product ad shows a man being mobbed by women after using Brylcreem. It turns women into lust-crazed caricatures, and men into helpless victims of their own attractiveness. The overt objectification and gender stereotyping wouldn’t make it past legal now.
9. Del Monte Ketchup: “You mean a woman can open it?” (Again)
Image from Wikipedia
Yes, this idea showed up multiple times across brands. In the 1960s, Del Monte ran a campaign boasting about how their ketchup bottles were easy to open, even for women. That kind of branding doesn’t just reinforce gender stereotypes; it reveals how deeply embedded they were.
10. Van Heusen: “Show her it’s a man’s world.”
Image from Wikipedia
This 1950s ad depicts a woman kneeling, serving breakfast in bed to a man wearing a Van Heusen tie. It’s the kind of image that now feels aggressively regressive — like a textbook case of patriarchal marketing. And yes, the slogan is just as bad as it sounds.
11. Drummond Sweaters: “Men are better than women!”
Image from Wikipedia
This ad featured a checklist of why men were supposedly superior, culminating in the punchline: “That’s why men wear Drummond sweaters.” While it tried to be tongue-in-cheek, the outdated chauvinism is glaring. Today, no brand would gamble on this tone-deaf irony.
12. Fat-shaming ads for reducing belts and pills
Image from Wikipedia
Vintage ads from the 1930s to the 1960s often used phrases like “Don’t be a chubby hubby” or “She let herself go.” These fat-shaming campaigns exploited insecurities to sell pseudo-fitness devices. It wasn’t just toxic — it was deeply damaging to body image, especially for women.
13. Lucky Strike: “Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet.”
Image from Wikipedia
This 1920s campaign encouraged women to smoke instead of eat, promoting cigarettes as a diet tool. It’s a chilling reminder of how beauty standards were literally weaponized. Telling people to choose lung cancer over calories is advertising at its most manipulative.
14. Palmolive Soap: “Most men ask ‘Is she pretty?’ not ‘Is she clever?’”
Image from Wikipedia
This 1930s ad flat-out states that intelligence doesn’t matter — only looks do. The suggestion is that Palmolive will make you beautiful enough to matter. It’s a sobering reflection of how deeply brands once bought into superficial standards.