[dmschulman]

I see your point with the example of the DICE advert, and not that I think it's a tasteful ad, but it's obviously riffing on the stereotypical Calvin Klein fashion model photo spread (which one could argue is a clever joke in context).

Of course "Alex" would never receive such attention for being attractive (hence the joke) nor would he be harassed for merely appearing on such a dumb advert. It of course illustrates the idiotic double standard between men and women in tech (or even fashion for that matter) which is your whole thesis here.

The first thing that popped into my head when I saw the advert you're featured in was "this is a really poor advertisement" either done with the explicit expectation of eliciting eyeballs (like most ads) or whipped up in last minute fashion with no real thought put into it (I didn't even realize it was a recruitment ad until I read your post).

There's a lot to break down regarding the micro issues (a terribly done ad) and the macro issues (sexism, male gaze, internet rage, etc) but I would be particularly upset with the people who devised this concept. I'd hazard a guess that the other people who were in the running to be placed on this ad were just as photogenic (which if true is completely maddening and upsetting).

It's equally disgusting to me that there's been human toll taken because some schmucks in the marketing department decided to whip this up in one day with clearly little forethought.

[anchalee]

I'm waiting on receiving photos of the other ads back but when I do I will certainly post them. The other people featured in the ads are actually of many different shapes and colors.

To be fair, OneLogin has a relatively small engineering team. Of all of the other female engineers at the company, I have now been there the longest. I really hate needing to validate this but I also have pretty great stats on sprint completion as well. It makes me sad that mine is the only one getting attention and people seem to have these far out opinions on what really is going on.

[vizer]

I did see some of the other ads. Unfortunately I was more upset about your quote and the purpose of this ad. I was personally offended that all the male engineers are bragging about their codes and how important their job is, where as you are talking about how cool your co-workers are. I don't think it is your fault but accept the fact that this ad is in poor taste.

[minimaxir]

> The first thing that popped into my head when I saw the advert you're featured in was "this is a really poor advertisement" either done with the explicit expectation of eliciting eyeballs (like most ads) or whipped up in last minute fashion with no real thought put into it (I didn't even realize it was a recruitment ad until I read your post).

Ads that are simply a positive testimonial from an employee of the company are standard for startups in San Francisco. It's about awareness.

Speaking of marketing awareness, the testimonial isn't even necessary. Case in point, the Lucas from Venmo campaign a year ago: http://valleywag.gawker.com/venmo-everyone-hates-your-weirdo...

[dmschulman]

I'm not in SF so I wouldn't know. Is the OneLogin ad par for the course? At least from the Venmo example it doesn't seem like these kinds of ads are particularly enjoyed by passers by.

Advertisements are designed to catch a person's attention and elicit a response. Most marketers don't care whether it's a good response or a bad response, just getting noticed is the goal. There's a lot of visual language tied up in ads which we're conditioned to interpret a certain way. Many ads mismatch these visual cues to attract a person's attention (sometimes successfully, sometimes not). I think a lot of the anger at the OneLogin ad comes from the mismatched messages in the same way the Venmo ad did, only because it's a woman in the ad the anger is directed at her instead of the concept/execution.