Agency hits back after ban on saucy adverts for scrap firm

AN ADVERTISING firm whose controversial saucy ads for a Yorkshire scrap merchant were banned for having no relevance to the product has hit back by asking “what does a gorilla playing the drums have to do with chocolate?”

Blue Pencil Writers designed a series of adverts for Wakefield company Eric France scrap metal merchants that depicted scantily clad women. It defended the adverts after a watchdog made its ruling.

The adverts have been scrapped after the Advertising Standards Agency ruled they were degrading to women and had no relevance to the advertised product.

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But a spokesman for the advertising firm hit back at the ruling by pointing out the popular Dairy Milk adverts featuring a gorilla on drums.

He said: “Perhaps the use of scantily clad women doesn’t relate to scrap, but what does a gorilla playing the drums have to do with chocolate? A gorilla in scanty underwear perhaps would have been banned.”

The ads, featuring women in underwear, have been a regular sight on the back of buses and billboards in Wakefield for around half a decade.

But now the ASA has ruled that some of the adverts portrayed women as sexual objects and bore no relation to scrap metal dealing. The ASA received five complaints against seven adverts which were displayed on buses in April.

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The ASA ruling said the adverts were sexist, demeaning to women and likely to cause offence.

The ruling said: “We considered that the sexually provocative poses of the women in the ads had the effect of making them appear sexually available.”

A spokesman for Blue Pencil Writers said he accepted that the use of models had no real relationship to scrap metal and the firm’s response to the ASA was “somewhat tongue in cheek”.

He said: “The truth is, the target market is mostly professional tradespeople, men between 18 and 50, and they like looking at attractive women. Whether it’s right or wrong is not my position to decide, I just want to get the best result for the client.

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“I am sure, in fact, that there is a radical feminist view that pornographic imagery of women far from being demeaning and sexist, is in fact empowering and positive – there’s an argument for everything if you look hard enough.”

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