Ad description
A poster for Great Grass, an artificial grass supplier, seen in July 2024, featured an image of a woman’s torso and upper legs. She was wearing flesh-coloured underwear and held a potted plant in front of her crotch. She held scissors in her other hand. Headline text stated, “No trimming needed! [wink emoji]”.
Issue
The complainant, who believed the ad objectified and sexualised women, challenged whether it was offensive, harmful and irresponsible.Response
Great Grass MCR t/a Great Grass said the ad had been on display for several months and had therefore been seen by hundreds of thousands of people. They believed that, because there had been only one complaint, most of those who saw it were not offended by the ad. They said they had in fact received 47 positive comments about it. They believed the ad generated business because people found it amusing and memorable.
Great Grass believed it was wrong to assume that the person featured in the ad was a woman when it could equally be a man or a transgender person. They said it made no mention of women or sex, nor did it show any obvious female sexual features.
75Media, the media owner, said the ad was already on display when they took over the poster site in July 2024. They said they took the ASA’s concerns very seriously and would remove the ad immediately if it was found to breach the CAP Code.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA considered that those who saw the ad would interpret the image as featuring a woman, due to her slim waist, curved hips, slim arms and lack of obvious body hair. The model was dressed only in flesh-coloured underwear, which we considered was intended to suggest that she was nude. The image was cropped from the chest down, so her face could not be seen. The model held a pot plant in front of her crotch, with scissors posed as if to trim the plant. We considered that those elements made the model’s groin area the dominant focus of the ad.
The ad stated, “No trimming needed!” We considered that, alongside the image of the pot plant placed over the groin area, the text would be understood as an allusion both to pruning a plant and to trimming pubic hair.
The ad appeared in an untargeted medium. We considered that the tone was not overly sexual and that the image was not explicit. We acknowledged that many would see it as a light-hearted reference to the low maintenance properties of artificial grass. We considered, however, that the cropped image of a woman in underwear accompanied by text that alluded to pubic hair had the effect of demeaning and objectifying women by using their genitalia to draw attention to an unrelated product. We considered that the emoji next to the text, which featured a winking face with its tongue out, added to the degrading and mocking tone.
Because we considered the ad objectified women, we further considered it was likely to cause serious and widespread offence and included a gender stereotype in a way that was likely to cause harm. We concluded that the ad was irresponsible and breached the Code.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 1.3 (Responsible advertising), 4.1 and 4.9 (Harm and offence).
Action
The ad must not appear again in the form complained of. We told Great Grass MCR Ltd t/a Great Grass to ensure their future ads were socially responsible and did not cause serious or widespread offence, including by featuring a harmful gender stereotype by objectifying women.
