Too bad that MILF sale is good ol' bait & switch. All the $9 seats are gone.

Wait, "offensive"? Tasteless, yes, but offensive to whom?

This is, as Meg notes, "cute," but that's about as far as it goes.

Not only is it a juvenile and stupid idea for a campaign, it's offensive to women.

I am also offended as an advertising professional, but that's neither here nor there.

They were probably smoking fags when they created that.

Ride the SLUT

Or

Experience the WGASA

It's understandable.

I'm laughing harder than I've laughed in a long time. Spirit needs to hire some younger marketing staff, to avoid this sort of...acronomical faux pas.

I have to wonder just how I should interpret the cost of $9 "each way".

@EKTHESY MILF is offensive to women? Well I am not a mother, or even a female for that matter, but I think most moms would take it as a compliment that their kids friends wanted to, well, you know. I wouldn't mind being a FILF, well, maybe with a better sounding acronym.

There's also Microsoft's infamous Critical Update Notification Tool.

I saw a web-vertisement for it. I was like wow! Then I saw it was an airline. Kudos for creating buzz, mistake or not.

Just for the record, some people think the F part of MILF is an "offensive" word. I don't, but some people do. Me, I like it.

@alexanderpink: *sigh* There's actually a term for male version of MILF but I'm going to refrain from saying what it is.

MILF Island
50 Eighth Grade Boys...25 Superhot Moms...No Rules.

Well at least now we know how they all get to MILF Island!

I get their email messages into my public address and saw this one and just rolled my eyes. They knew what they were doing, and they thought it would create exactly the buzz you're seeing.

You see, they're marketing under the "it's better to ask for forgiveness than ask for permission" mentality. They know people will forget.

@ SHINOBUU please share

Uh ... just because some people heard of the joke doesn't mean others have. I have no clue what the "alternate" meaning is, and assuming that everyone knows of some joke and then blaming someone for it is just ridiculous.

Not all of us had, or will ever have, a desire to see lame movies with no taste. So why are people assuming (and we know what that word breaks down into) that someone legitimately is up to something?

It's a weird-sounding word. There's only one reason a marketer would use it and that's because it's naughty.

@cashmerewhore: Well that's just great. I'm not paying full price for a MILF.

@Buran:
"Mom I'd like to "fornicate" (with)"

Of course Spirit knows what they are doing. They had a mullet sale a while back. Business in the front, party in the back. Tee Hee Hee

awesome.

@clevershark: lmao, they didn't!?! Please tell me the abbreviated it somewhere!

@Buran: See silvanx's comment. This was used knowingly. No way that mangled abbreviation would have come into being without the infamous version.

@alexanderpink:
Might as well educate the masses, the term is "DILF".

My favorite acronym mistake is still the Wisconsin Air National Guard. My brother wanted to start selling T-shirts, but couldn't think up a clever enough tagline for it.

They totally knew what it meant. The emails I get from them often include "cheeky" or "funny" names for sales. Their Mullet sale (complete with a picture of a guy with a mullet, which eliminates the possibility that they thought mullet meant something else) comes to mind.

@kimsama: So, you're going to accuse someone of lying with no proof that they did so, and then accuse them of lying again when asked about it. That's classy. Yes, I know companies do weird things, but accusations that are unprovable are just as unclassy as what they allegedly did.

@alexanderpink:

I think some women would find it offensive, and (to me) that's the litmus test here.

@Meg Marco:

It's not the action that's offensive, it's the object that's offended. The term "MILF" is yet another way of portraying a woman as a sex object.

In the town I grew up in, they have a little bus system, named CART... CART stands for Churchill Area Regional Transport. Churchill is the county the town is in, and the bus doesn't travel outside of the one city in the county... Fallon... now, I think my slogan was the best idea for Fallon Area Regional Transport. "FART around town...". Yeah, I know I'm juvenile sometimes, but I'm okay with that.

I think most moms would take it as a compliment that their kids friends wanted to, well, you know.

@alexanderpink: I would find that creepy. Very, very, very creepy.

Calling someone beautiful or sexy is a compliment. Telling someone (whom you aren't romantic with) you want to do them is crass, creepy, and makes them get their pepper spray at the ready.

i flew on spirit for $7 each way, then paid $20 in taxes, they sell like 20 seats each flight dirt cheap and then gradually increase it as the seats get filled up.

Never fly spirit. You have been warned.

no matter what, they clearly havent optimized the images on their website (pixelated and grainy), which leads me to the conclusion, IF YOU CANT SAVE FOR WEB, WHY SHOULD I TRUST YOU WITH MY LIFE?

Yes, it is offensive to ever express that a woman is desirable. What was that old tootsie-roll jingle? 'Whatever it is I think I see, becomes offensive to me.'

@target_veteran:
You don't remember the WANG computer? A company owned by designer Vera Wang's family.

@EKTHESY Are you saying they aren't????

...It had to be said.

I wonder if they'll have a GILF sale....

Then I'd be game.

It is most certainly not a faux pas. When you first go to their site, the islands in the flash animation are in the form of a reclined woman.

@ekthesy: So men are never looked at by women and said- boy I'd like to F him? I think it is natural for people to be physically attracted to each other. Such as the one looks at a picture of someone and treats that person as an object of sexual desire. What is wrong with that?

I thought it was funny. I guess I am offensive.

@ekthesy: seriously??? It's an abbreviation that clearly someone just didn't think through. I hate to break it to the American masses but just because a teenage movie came out ten years ago and coined the term does not, in fact, mean that the rest of the world has seen it nor does it mean they know what the hell a MILF even is. To the majority of the world, it's just another damn abbreviation. And for the record, it's not offensive to ALL women because the "M" stands for mom and not ALL women are mothers.

Cmon, since when did a phrase like "Many Islands, Low Fares" roll off the tongue, especially in marketing speak? I don't remember the last time I've heard airfares described as low - cheap is probably the preferred phrase. Obviously the marketing team here were sitting bored in a meeting and decided to get drunk, came up with MILF and tried to come up with a phrase related to air travel ... and butchered it.

But I for one think this is hilarious.

That flash IS of a woman!! Oh MY!!!!

For all you naysayers....you should go look for yourself!!!!!!!!!!

spiritair.com. Look at the right hand side.

@hexychick: just for the record, the term was in existence long before american pie. here's a newsgroup reference on alt.mag.playboy from 1995 (WARNING POSSIBLE ADULT CONTENT - NOT WORK SAFE):
[groups.google.com]

@Buran: "Not all of us had, or will ever have, a desire to see lame movies with no taste."

American Pie (though not its sequels), despite its gross-out tendencies, was actually a well-crafted and honest film, and compares rather favorably to other coming-of-age films. Though I suppose it doesn't appeal to people with the magical ability to rate films that they haven't seen.

EKTHESY: It's not the action that's offensive, it's the object that's offended. The term "MILF" is yet another way of portraying a woman as a sex object.

Wait. So what you're saying is that they're not?

We all know the term was in existence prior to the release of American Pie. It's in line of how the term was popularized.

As for the MILF Sale, thats... well... Hilarious.

Spirit: "We had no idea that's what it meant. And, uh, we never realized that island looked like a woman on her back either. Honest."