A company that sells insurance to photographers has been forced to remove its recent advertising campaign after the Advertising Standards Authority received complaints that it was offensive, sexist and degrading to women.
Aaduki, a specialist insurance company, pride themselves on their tongue-in-cheek Carry-On style of advertising. But this time their advert overstepped the mark.
The ad, which ran in Amateur Photographer magazine, read: "Confused and don't know where to look?" and beneath this was a photo of a topless woman covering her breasts with two digital SLR cameras.
The ASA ruled that the advert and the service being sold bore no relation to each other and that the image was degrading to women.
They said: "The ASA considered that the image of the woman wearing only boxer briefs and holding a D-SLR camera to each breast was provocative.
"We noted that the ad was for multimedia insurance, and that the image bore no relation to the advertised service.
"We considered that the image was likely to be seen to degrade women by linking their physical attributes to that of the cameras, and concluded that the ad had the potential to cause serious offence to some people."
The advert was banned and Aaduki's parent company Versatile Insurance Professionals warned to take more care in future with their adverts.
In response to the ASA, Versatile Insurance Professionals claimed that usually Aaduki's advertising involves a group of male models wearing blue shorts, a well-known marketing campaign in the world of photography, and that no one ever complained about the Aaduki Boys.
They claimed that they wanted to use women in a similar way in their campaigns to "engage the male photographer that did not normally find their ads attractive".
Versatile added that their advertising style was "suggestive and naughty without being obscene" and was no worse than photographs that appear in tabloid newspapers.
Related links:
Read more on the story (The Guardian)
Read about misleading or offensive advertising (FindLaw)
Find local specialist solicitors throughout the UK (FindLaw)
