"Vaginal" advertising doesn't get much sleazier than this

More than 20 years ago, before I got my first agency job, I recall having a decidedly non-sober discussion with my friends about sex in advertising: "If things keep getting more explicit," I joked, "some day you'll see an ad that just shows a beer coming out of a great big [crude euphemism for a vulva]."

Guess what? It's (sort of) finally happened:

Okay, it's a bar logo rather than an actual beer. But it's just as wrong.

This new low is brought to you by an Australian bar called Mordialloc Supper Club. The obvious plan to get free exposure through bad PR worked without even having to buy any media, as the Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation used its licencing authority to ban the image from Mordialloc's web site and Facebook page.

The VCGLR's ruling states, "the promotion is not in the public interest as it objectifies the female body and the commission considers it is likely to offend the ordinary reasonable person" and threatened the bar with a $17,323.20 fine if it didn't remove the image from its digital assets. (It's still archived on their blog, however.)

Yeah, I know. I'm compounding the problem. But I'd rather call out what I see as the worst offences of my industry than just let them fester. This one isn't just conceptually and executionally lazy, it's also pretty offensive to women and the whole idea of childbirth.

Australian condom ad has fun with sexuality, gets banned from TV

Now THIS is how you deploy the "ad designed to be banned" strategy.

Via Australia, of course:



What's not to love? The ad celebrates safer sex, it uses sexuality to sell in a playful way, and it isn't sleazy.

Australia's FreeTV "Commercials Advice" department (CAD) refused the ad for commercial broadcast. “CAD knocked it back asking for the removal of all sexual references,” Four Seasons founder and managing director Graham Porter told AdNews. “To connect with the younger demographic, you need to be irreverent and entertaining and to remove all sexual references in the TV ad defeats the purpose of this entire campaign. The fact is this is a critical safe sex message.”

The ads will run, however, in Australia's Hoyts cinema chain's theatres before screenings of Jackass: Bad Grandpa — aimed at a 16- to 24-year-old audience.

The ad was written and directed by comedian Gary Eck, known internationally as screenwriter for the children's movie Happy Feet Two.

Another brand makes "getting banned" part of its marketing strategy

If I was just in this for the money, I'd consider opening up an ad agency that specializes in things that offend people, like this:



Really, what's the point in bothering with things like research, strategy and creativity, when you can just put a half-dressed woman in an awkwardly-sexualized context and have men leer at her?

In this case, Innerware, an Australian lingerie retailer, managed to do it in a way that upset prudes and feminists alike.

Here are some sample complaints made to Australia's Advertising Standards Authority:

It disgusted me and it is degrading to women. I thought it was an ad for the sex industry when I first saw it.  

I feel the ad represents low level porn.  This ad offends me because the purpose is to advertise women's lingerie, not to objectify women and promote attention by strange men as the main goal of wearing lingerie. This is demeaning to a lot of women. The ad is more aimed at men than women, yet it is advertising a product made for women.

It objectifies women and makes them out to be a piece of meat. it doesn't actually sell the lingerie at all only the fact that men want to service you. It's filth!!! 

And here is the advertiser's response:

The concept is intended to be quirky and tongue in cheek. In no way was there any intention  to discriminate against, objectify, exploit or degrade women. Innerware is a retailer of ladies underwear and the actress was wearing their product.  

The woman is portrayed as being very confident and in control. In absolutely no way is she undermined by the males in the ad. Her attire, although revealing, is classy and covers all genitalia. There is no nudity in this ad. 

"All genitalia"? Are there new genital parts of which I was not aware?

The "she's in control" argument is an old one, but it never seems to go away. Nonetheless, this pointless ad did what it set out to do — get the brand talked about.

And interestingly, the ASA bought the advertiser's rationale and found the ad neither "objectification," "exploitative," nor "degrading":

The Board noted that the product advertised is lingerie and considered that whilst a depiction of a woman in lingerie is not of itself exploitative and/or degrading in the Board's view the depiction of a woman in her lingerie asking a tyre fitter if he can "fit" her is a purposeful use of her sexual appeal to attract the attention of the viewer to the product being advertised.  The Board noted that the woman deliberately dressed in a manner that will attract the attention of the employees of the workshop and that she appears to be enjoying the attention of the men who work there. The Board considered that although the advertisement does use sexual appeal, it is not portrayed in a manner that is exploitative and degrading to women. 

Instead, they banned the ad because of "sexualisation":

However the Board considered that the advertisement did have a strong sexual suggestion with the combination of the woman wearing lingerie, her sexualised strutting, the focus on her body and the sexualised conversation. In the Board‟s view the level of sexualisation was not sensitive even to an M [mature audiences only] classification.  Based on the above the Board considered that the advertisement depicted images which did not treat the issue of sex, sexuality and nudity with sensitivity to the relevant audience and determined that the advertisement did breach Section 2.4 of the Code. 

So sexism is just dandy on Australian TV, but there's something wrong with "bein' sexy".

Paddy Power declares open season on Chavs #FdAdFriday

"Vajazzlers"

For those of us on this side of the Atlantic, "Chav" is a classist term for obnoxious and vain people of lower socioeconomic status, equivalent to "Guido" in America.

Online gambling operation Paddy Power, who have figured out the best media plan is to get your ads banned, came up with this one that they say is unbroadcastable in Great Britain.



It is pretty amusing, though. Someone should send that sniper to New Jersey.

First seen on Ads of The World

The King is a cheater

Reader Mark sent me an interesting news item from the U.K. It seems that Burger King has had one of its recent ads pulled by the Advertising Standards Authority.

Let's watch, and see if we can spot the problem:



So what was the issue? Implied zoophilia? Encouraging food-based adultery?

According to the BBC:

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said: "We also examined the size of the burgers in the hands of an average-sized man and considered that they did not fill the hands to the same extent as the burger featured in the advert.

"We concluded that the visuals in the advert were likely to mislead viewers as to the size and composition of the product."

This is pretty funny, considering everyone knows they don't use real food in ads. Right?


(Example from nuffy.net - there are more disturbing ones!)

Plus, of course, everyone also knows we men exaggerate the size of everything we can get our hands on.