Adidas women’s sports tops ad banned in UK

According to the advertising self-regulatory body, the campaign, launched in February, was “harmful” and “offensive”.

An advertising campaign by Adidas that featured several breasts to publicize the diversity of women’s sports tops ended up banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) of the United Kingdom, a body that acts similarly to that of Conar (National Council for Advertising Self-Regulation) in Brazil.

According to the entity, the campaign, launched in February, was “harmful” and “offensive” and decided to punish her for containing explicit nudity and appearing where children could see the ads.

The agency received 24 complaints and judged 3 ads, being a post on Twitter and 2 two advertisements on billboards without segmentation. Among the complaints, people made complaints about the gratuitous use of nudity in the ads, objectifying women by reducing them to body parts, offensiveness and questioning whether it was appropriate for the content to be viewed by children.

On the microtext network, the brand posted a photo with its own and the following caption: “We believe that women’s breasts of all shapes and sizes deserve support and comfort. That’s why our new line of sports tops contains 43 styles to that everyone can find the right fit for them.”

In defense, Adidas told ASA that the images were not gratuitous or sexual, but were intended to “reflect and celebrate different shapes and sizes and illustrate diversity.” According to the brand, the images were cut to protect the identity of the models, who would have volunteered to support the campaign.

He added that he had not shown the ads on posters or billboards near schools or religious sites. The manufacturer also claimed that it did not consider the campaign to cause harm to children.

The ASA understood, however, that the depiction of bare breasts, including in an ad with the use of pixels on the nipples, “would likely be viewed as explicit nudity.” “We observed that the breasts were the main focus of the ads, and there was less emphasis on the tops themselves, which were only mentioned in the text that accompanied them,” he said.

“As the ads contained explicit nudity, we felt they required careful targeting to avoid offending viewers,” the agency continued. And reinforced that the large posters were not targeted and could be seen by people of all ages, including children.

ASA also analyzed the brand’s Twitter feed and said that the post was not in line with the content usually disclosed in its communication, which is why it would likely offend the platform’s users.