Remember those ridiculous Protein World adverts in London’s Underground that asked commuters if they were “beach body ready”, accompanied by an image of a fit young thing in a bikini?
Well, they’re back, despite a shit-storm of controversy that saw the ads get pulled before cropping up again in New York on giant billboards.
To kick off 2016 with a bang, the fitness supplement company has now brought us the gift of a ‘New Year, New You’ in its 2016 campaign.
Its first TV advert features young, attractive models in tiny workout clothes and bikinis doing all the exercise things on a beach to the dreadful sounds of house music, as though these are the things that inspire us to get fit.
TV Campaign launching in UK,USA,FRANCE and GERMANY 2016 #ProteinWorld #WorldTakeOver pic.twitter.com/HAxSXXbNNm
— Arjun Seth (@arjun_seth) January 3, 2016
Founder and CEO Ajun Seth announced that the TV campaign will launch in the UK, US, France and Germany in 2016. The ad is already airing on Channel 5 in the UK, according to Marketing Week.
The previous campaign faced a small protest in Hyde Park and more than 71,000 people signed an online petition calling on Protein World to remove its posters.
But the UK Advertising Standards Authority deemed the image of a bikini-clad model not offensive or harmful, with a statement saying “We did not consider the image of the model would shame women who had different body shapes into believing they needed to take a slimming supplement to feel confident wearing swimwear in public”.
