Recently, I lodged a complaint with Ad Standards. Using its online complaint form, I reported a larger-than-life, porn-themed advertisement on display in my local shopping centre in Perth, WA. A week later, I received a notice from Ad Standards advising that while the ad was of concern to me, the Community Panel Chair considered that is was “an image of a woman in lingerie”, and that my complaint was of the type that has been “consistently dismissed” by the Community Panel.

In yet another display of inconsistent decision-making, the Ad Standards Community Panel has dismissed community complaints against a porn-inspired Honey Birdette ad.

Inconsistent rulings show ad industry self-regulation failure

Refuses to submit complaints re porn styled image for review

Peter Allen. Steve McCann. Damien Frawley. Stephen Conry. Bob Johnston. Adam Tindall. Ross Robertson. Kevin O’Sullivan. Grant Kelley. Mark Steiner. Daryl Browning. Darren Steinberg.

These are the leaders of our local family friendly shopping centres - lessors to and profiteers from sex shop Honey Birdette. Hosts of public displays of porn-themed imagery. Facilitators of all-age viewing of larger-than-life-sized porn-style pics.

Yesterday I took two of my children into town for ice cream. This is what they were exposed to on a busy Perth street.

And its because you bothered to speak out

*Update* A prominent city strip club has been ordered by City of Adelaide to remove an offending advertising screen following complaints

South Australian MP Frank Pangallo has called out a porn-themed video advertisement being broadcast in Adelaide’s CBD.

The video, which was broadcast during the day in the CBD, is an advertisement for strip club The Firm.

Mr Pangallo said the advertisement should be banned or moved from public view:

"Council seem to jump immediately on traders who may have inadvertently breached outdoor or indoor seating/dining regulations but here they are turning a blind eye to blatant sexploitation and soft porn on one of our most prominent boulevards and tourist precincts."

City of Adelaide associate director of planning and development Shanti Ditter said that the council does not approve advertising content, and recommended complaints be directed to Ad Standards.

However, Ad Standards continually fails to be effective. Ad Standards regularly dismisses complaints against sexist and sexually objectifying advertising because there is "no explicit nudity", and permits sex industry venues to advertise pornography and prostitution to children on the basis that the advertising is "relevant to the product". The advertising industry has proven time and again it cannot be trusted to regulate itself. This is what industry self-regulation looks like- a strip club broadcasting video in the CBD during the day to an audience that will likely involve children. 

Thank MP Frank Pangallo on Twitter here or Facebook here

See also:

25 Reasons Why Ad Industry Self-Regulation is a Disaster

In previous years, sex shop Honey Birdette Christmas shopfront ad campaigns have typically featured Santa Claus. One depicted the beloved children’s icon on his back being straddled by a lingerie-clad model, another with him tugging at a model’s underwear, and another BDSM-themed scenario shows Santa bound and gagged alongside a model in red lingerie.

It’s safe to say that our expectations for 2018 were low.

Ad Standards has upheld complaints over a prominent Kittens Car Wash billboard in Melbourne, where sleazy men pay women in g-string bikinis to feign interest in them wash their cars.

A complaint made to Ad Standards read as follows:

It’s sexist and degrading to women. It encourages the notion that women’s bodies are for the sexual gratification of men. It’s in a highly visible area where families with children (including myself) pass by every day. It’s also primarily there to promote the associated strip club and as such is advertising sexual services in a prominent public position. It is demeaning and overtly sexual for a company who only wash cars. The workers wear bikinis to wash your car but the billboard is also to promote the strip club also called Kittens. It is on a prominent corner of a high traffic area.

Ad Standards considered the complaint, noting that the woman’s body was being used as an object to advertise the service. The panel found that the advertisement was in breach of Section 2.2 of the code which states: “Advertising or marketing communications should not employ sexual appeal in a manner which is exploitative or degrading of any individual or group of people.”

The panel also considered the woman’s pose was “seductive and highly sexualised”, finding it was in breach of Section 2.4 of the code, which requires advertisers to treat sex, sexuality and nudity with sensitivity to the relevant audience.

Kittens Car Wash has a long history of using sexist and sexually objectifying imagery to advertise their sexist business. The ‘Kittens School of Striptease’ bus advertisement sat on the corner of a major intersection in Melbourne in full view of traffic parked next to a bikini carwash. After Ad Standards upheld complaints against it in 2010, Kittens continued to use the same image on a number of different vehicles. Read more.

See also:

Sexist and outdated: Kittens Carwash pays women to wash cars in bikinis

Ad Standards Board bans Kittens Carwash Striptease bus ad

Kittens Car Wash comes under fire from feminists for paying its female workers to clean vehicles wearing nothing more than bikinis and g-strings- Daily Mail