Ad description
An Instagram post by Jaded London, a clothing retailer, seen on 29 September 2024, featured two images. The first image featured a nude woman wearing a motorbike helmet and boots. She was placed between two motorbike wheels and was holding the front wheel, while her feet were on the back wheel. The second image featured a woman wearing a motorbike helmet, boots and a faux fur coat that was raised to expose her bottom. She was placed between two motorbike wheels and was holding the front wheel, while her feet were on the back wheel. A caption on the post stated “Introducing our newest collaboration with @newrock. 4 styles. Hand crafted in Spain. Launching 3rd October. Stay tuned”.
Issue
The complainant, who believed that the images objectified and sexualised women, challenged whether the ad was offensive and promoted a harmful gender stereotype.
Response
Jaded London Ltd believed that the ad did not objectify or sexualise women. They said the purpose of the ad was to celebrate the strength of the female form and had received positive feedback from their customers, who they believed were predominately female. They said they wanted to ensure their customers felt respected.
Assessment
Upheld
The CAP Code stated that ads must be prepared with a sense of responsibility to consumers and to society, must not cause serious or widespread offence and must not include gender stereotypes that were likely to cause harm.
The women were seen holding the front wheels of a motorbike while their legs were on the back wheels, which meant that their bodies and arms were stretched out in a horizontal position. That gave the impression that they formed the main component of a bike. The ASA considered this suggested they should be viewed as parts of machinery and as objects, rather than as people. Both women were wearing motorbike helmets, meaning their faces were not visible. We considered obscuring the women’s faces made their bodies the focus of the ad and further presented them as objects.
The women’s bodies were positioned so their buttocks were in the place of the motorbike seat and both women’s legs were bent at the knees. That had the effect of raising their buttocks in a manner which would have been understood as being sexually suggestive, as well as being a central focus of the ad. The woman’s body in the first image was entirely naked, meaning her breasts and buttocks were exposed, which added to that sexual impression. The woman in the second image was wearing a faux fur coat. However, the coat was raised, which exposed both her legs and her buttocks and made them the focus of the image. We acknowledged that the raised coat could have been interpreted as a reference to a motorbike moving at speed as the wind blew the coat upwards. However, we considered exposing her buttocks in that manner gave the image a voyeuristic feel. We considered that by presenting the women as motorbikes, in conjunction with the nudity and sexually suggestive position in which their bodies were posed, the images featured the harmful gender stereotype that women were sexual objects.
Although the ad promoted a shoe brand, we considered the women’s bodies were the focus of the images, not the boots, and the nudity was not relevant to the products.For those reasons, we considered that the ad objectified the women depicted and gave the impression that their bodies were sexual objects. We therefore concluded that the ad included a harmful gender stereotype and was likely to cause serious offence.
The ad breached CAP (Edition 12) rules 1.3 (Social responsibility), 4.1 and 4.9 (Harm and offence).
Action
The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told Jaded London Ltd to ensure that future ads were socially responsible and did not cause serious offence, including by featuring a harmful gender stereotype by objectifying or sexualising women.
