The UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has handed down its verdict on the controversial Protein World’s ‘Are You Beach Body Ready?’ campaign. The verdict is the image of a bikini-clad model is not offensive or harmful, so hush the 70,000 people who said otherwise.
Despite the campaign receiving 378 complaints, mainly about the image ‘body-shaming’ women, objectifying women and generally making women feel like their only worthy of praise if they’re skinny.
The weight-loss ad caused huge backlash including a protest in London’s Hyde Park and a Change.org petition that attracted over 70,000 signatures. Protein world had a douchebag response to the body-shaming accusations, going on Twitter to tell people to grow some balls and stop being “fatty sympathisers”.
The ASA said: “We considered the claim “ARE YOU BEACH BODY READY?” prompted readers to think about whether they were in the shape they wanted to be for the summer and we did not consider that the accompanying image implied that a different body shape to that shown was not good enough or was inferior. We concluded that the headline and image were unlikely to cause serious or widespread offence.
“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. For that reason, we concluded the ad was not irresponsible.”
The controversial campaign made its US debut last week, where the posters have been defaced with “this oppresses women” stickers.
Yea, it does. Spotted on the subway @OccupyWallStNYC #ThisOppressesWomen pic.twitter.com/eKqrtEQPqc
— Mary Clinton (@msmaryclinton) June 23, 2015
Vintage 1969 sticker used to combat sexist #beachbody ads #EachBodysReady #thisoppresseswomen http://t.co/BfFCbagLVR pic.twitter.com/Aci2hN1w38
— Nat’l Women’s Lib (@4womenslib) June 17, 2015
Sticking it to sexism -one sexist ad at a time #thisoppresseswomen @4womenslib pic.twitter.com/3pNmkEgNSf
— Hae-Lin Choi (@haelinita) June 26, 2015
What did you think of the ASA’s verdict on the Protein World campaign? Tweet us @bandt
