Honey Birdette sexploitation highlights Ad Standards Board incompetence. 

The Advertising Standards Board has upheld complaints against Honey Birdette’s sexist ‘Office Party’ advertisements, featuring fully clothed men in suits alongside lingerie clad women. However, this ruling accomplishes very little, given Honey Birdette replaced this ad over a month ago with their “Sorry Kids, we gave Santa the night off” ads depicting Santa spanking a model.

This latest development only serves to highlight the Advertising Standards Board’s ongoing failure to adequately regulate sexist advertising, and the willingness of stores like Honey Birdette to exploit an ineffective system of advertising regulation.

In response to this issue, Collective Shout supporter and petition starter Kenneth Thor has taken the fight against Honey Birdette sexploitation and the ASB’s inability to address it to members of parliament. In a letter to Victoria MP Rachel Carling Jenkins, Kenneth has highlighted the many failings of the Advertising Standards Board:

Pic credit MTR/Caters Media

I write to ask for your support in putting an end to porn-style advertising being allowed in family friendly shopping centres and amending the current legislation (or lack of) around Advertising Standards.

Serial offenders like Honey Birdette exploit broken advertising system

The Advertising Standards Bureau (ASB) has upheld no less than 9 out of 21 complaint case reports against Honey Birdette over the years. Honey Birdette have been ordered to take down highly sexualised and offensive posters from their shop windows, but they replace them with something just as bad or worse.

In this current system, as long as the advertiser takes down the ad eventually (in their own good time), it is registered by the ASB as a compliance. It does not matter if the replacement advertising is as bad or worse, it is considered a separate ad and requires a new set of complaints to be lodged. For example, in the last 5 months, they have been ordered to replace 4 ads!

Each case report consists of multiple complaints and requires the arduous effort of lodging complaints, waiting, sending in photo evidence, waiting up to 3 months, while the damage is already done. The worst thing is, there is nothing stopping the advertiser from breaching the code again. They can go through this process every day for the next ten years and the ASB will still register them as compliant, and the ASB can still boast about how effective self-regulation is with a 100% compliance rate. It is the biggest joke.

"“…‘hot’ is an imprecise term… ‘hot girls’ does not clearly identify any group of women who could be considered to be unfairly treated"

"the women are clothed in futuristic attire and positioned with their ‘weapons’ in an empowered way"

Originally published on The Conversation

Advertising and sex are two of the oldest professions in the world. Indeed, one of the earliest uses of advertising was to advertise sexual services; prostitutes in Ancient Greece carved ads into the soles of their sandals so that their footprints read: “Follow me”.

Sex and sexism, however, are different things. One is fun and most people do it at some time in their lives; the other is offensive and should never be done at all. But if recent events – from Eddie McGuire to Steve Price – are any indication, it seems sexism, like porn, is something you only know when you see it.

If you need to know how this plays out in advertising, the award-winning Game of Balls ad is sex-in-advertising. The Ultratune ads are sexism in advertising, as is the campaign using pre-teen models in sexualised poses to advertise dancewear.

A few months ago, we were alerted to Perth based coffee bean distributor Fresh One, a brand that was posting pornographic advertising on their Facebook page to promote coffee beans.

Wicked Campers ignores ad standards again with ‘fat girls are harder to kidnap’ slogan

[UPDATE 23rd April] – Wicked Campers breaches Ad Standards for the fourth time this month

Wicked Campers has once again violated Advertising Standards with its latest slogan “fat girls are harder to kidnap.” The vehicle hire company is a repeat offender, well known for printing vile and degrading slogans on its vans.

Click here to read the Ad Standards Board case report

The Ad Standards Board has dismissed complaints against Honey Birdette's shop front "Tasty Treats" ad. The complainant described the ad as highly sexualised, larger than life and situated in a shopping centre between a food court and children's play area. 

"More Australian men buy and read ZOO than any other magazine in the country – that’s a fact." - ACP Magazines, Zoo Magazine distributor

More sexploitation from a repeat corporate offender

[UPDATE] The Ad Standards Board has upheld complaints against Lynx. Read more.

A Revised version of ad is now appearing on television. If you've seen the new ad you can submit a complaint here.

Men's deodorant brand Lynx - owned by Unilever - has added to it's ongoing list of degrading ads with the company's latest promotion, "Lynx, cleans your balls."