Ad description
A paid-for Facebook ad for online dating service SofiaDate, seen in October 2024. The post by account “Ladies For A Night” featured an image of a woman, alongside a caption that stated, “Ukrainian Women need the protection of strong and mature men from the West. Do you want to support them?”. Beneath the image further text stated, “For Men 40+ [pointing emoji] Ukrainian Women [fire emoji]”. The ad contained a link to the SofiaDate website.
Issue
The complainant, who believed that the ad featured harmful stereotypes and objectified women, challenged whether the ad was irresponsible, harmful and offensive.
Response
Astrasoft Projects Ltd did not respond to the ASA’s enquiries.Facebook acknowledged the complaint but made no further comment.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA was concerned by Astrasoft Project LtSo d’s lack of response and apparent disregard for the Code, which was a breach of CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 1.7 (Unreasonable delay). We reminded them of their responsibility to provide a response to our enquiries and told them to do so in the future.
The CAP Code required marketers to ensure that ads were prepared with a sense of responsibility to consumers and to society, and did not contain anything that was likely to cause serious or widespread offence, with particular care to be taken to avoid causing offence on grounds of various protected characteristics, including race and sex. CAP Advertising Guidance stated that ads which directly contrasted male and female stereotypical characteristics should be handled with care. CAP Advertising Guidance also stated that portrayals that objectified or sexualised people using or fetishising characteristics that could be stereotypically associated with their racial or ethnic group had the potential to further compound harm by reinforcing ‘othering’, demeaning and/ or dehumanising beliefs about particular groups.
The ad featured the claim “Ukrainian Women need the protection of strong and mature men from the West”. We considered that the ad was likely to be seen in the context of the ongoing war in Ukraine, and that in that context it exploited a gender stereotype that potentially vulnerable women in a war setting needed the protection of men.
The ad was posted by an account named “Ladies for a Night” and featured an image of a younger woman. The ad also referred to “Men 40+” and “mature men”. We considered that gave the impression that the ad was offering sexual services targeted at older men. We considered that the ad therefore also exploited a stereotype that Eastern European women were more open to relationships with older men from wealthy countries and were more likely to engage in sex work. As a result, we considered that the ad objectified women and exploited characteristics stereotypically associated with Eastern European women in a harmful way.
On that basis we concluded that the ad featured harmful stereotypes, was irresponsible and likely to cause serious offence.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 1.3 (Social responsibility) and 4.1 and 4.9 (Harm and offence).
Action
The ad must not appear again in the form complained of. We told Astrasoft Projects Ltd t/a SofiaDate to ensure their future advertising did not contain anything that was likely to cause serious or widespread offence, particularly on the grounds of race or sex. We referred the matter to CAP’s Compliance team.
