Unpacking the "tired straight-male fantasy” of David protein bar ads

Sexism in advertising isn't anything new – from '50s housewives to bikini-clad beer models, this constructed gender divide has led marketing for decades. Naively, I believed that in the great year of 2026, things might have changed for the better. Protein brand David is proving otherwise.

Relying on provocative branding, David tries, and ultimately fails, to undo years of sexist branding, only serving to worsen its cause. While the best adverts often spark conversation, David's tonal whiplash demonstrates a brand facing a clear identity crisis.

David's latest campaign, Devour, was recently met with controversy for its alleged 'man-bashing' branding approach. Starring actress and model Julia Fox, the campaign features a billboard ad with the tagline "Men disappoint. David satisfies." An inversion of '00s era exclusionary branding, the ad was presumably attempting female empowerment, but ended up with a tonally jarring cocktail that reads like male fantasy masquerading as female sexuality.

Alongside it came a short film, featuring a leather-clad Fox in a confession booth. Filled with painfully on-the-nose sexual euphemism, she admits to giving in to the temptation of the protein bar. Touted as "mocking" and "sacreligious" the brand only further isolated consumers who saw through the ad's 'edgy' facade.

"Cliché. Stereotypical. Predictable. The Devour advert for David protein bars starring Julia Fox feels like a concept born from the male gaze of tech bros desperate for attention," says Spike Spondike, creative type director at Monotype.

"Shock advertising isn’t new. Benetton built its brand in the 1980s on provocative imagery - a nun and priest kissing, a Black woman breastfeeding a white infant. It worked because it was authentic. Benetton had a clear philosophy and used provocation as brand activism, not spectacle," she adds.

"Devour, by contrast, feels empty. Directed and filmed by cis men, it leans into tired straight-male fantasy while supposedly targeting women. The result is confusion, not impact. Who is this for?

Gendered branding at its worst doesn’t respond to genuine differences or needs. And in this case, the branding feels just as superficial as the ingredients," Spike says.

While I'm not against provocation in branding, David's tonally dissonant ads ultimately feel like the brand is trying too hard. Mock '80s Wall Street aesthetics paired with sexualised imagery read as textbook male fantasy – something that even a tongue-in-cheek 'empowering' tagline can't fix. Even the most controversial campaigns can teach us something, but David's ads merely demonstrate exactly what to avoid when building a provocative campaign. If you're going to ruffle feathers, at least have something to say.