Adidas’s fleshy viral campaign that used images of women’s breasts to promote its new sports bra has now been banned by UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).
The campaign was done during February via socials but also with posters in public places. Basically, forget posting a photo of the new sports bra, instead, the sportswear giant posted a collage of naked breasts instead – pretty edgy marketing.
Sure, there was clearly some shock value intent involved but it was also a way for the sportswear giant to normalise that women’s breasts come in different shapes and sizes – all in all, it was a pretty cool and eye-catching campaign.
https://twitter.com/adidas/status/1491411609180327942?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1491411609180327942%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bandt.com.au%2Fadidas-embraces-nudity-to-promote-its-new-sports-bra-in-titillating-twitter-campaign%2F
However, after numerous complaints, the ASA has ruled against the ad: “As the ads contained explicit nudity, we considered that they required careful targeting to avoid causing offence to those who viewed them.
“Therefore, the large posters were deemed unsuitable because they were likely to be seen by people of all ages.
The ASA concluded the ads were “inappropriately targeted, and were likely to cause widespread offence.”
Finally, ASA has instructed the sportswear giant that the ads must not appear again – ouch
Interesting, Adidas didn’t take the feedback laying down and NY Post reported that the sportswear giant responded with, “The images were only meant to reflect and celebrate different shapes and sizes, illustrate the diversity and demonstrate why tailored support bras were important.”
