Elle Baché ignores OMA advice and shows ‘sexualised’ ad to Fleet Review crowds
Cosmetics brand Ella Baché has ignored a ruling from the Outdoor Media Association and displayed a “sexualised” image despite being advised it was likely to breach advertising guidelines.
The image was projected on a lightbox displayed outside Customs House at Sydney’s Circular Quay as crowds of more than a miilion turned out for the Fleet Review to mark the Australian Navy’s 100th anniversary.
The stunt comes a month after Ella Bache revealed that while an image of naked models smiling had passed the scrutiny of the OMA, a similar version of the women looking serious had not.
Although the Advertising Standards Board upholds the voluntary advertising codes of practice, the OMA provides advice to its outdoor media company owners about whether an image may be in breach. If the members seek advice, they are then obliged to refuse to post the ad.
At the time, Charmaine Moldrich, CEO of the OMA told Mumbrella: “We felt that the image where they looked happy and in control they are empowered, but we felt that the image where they are staring down the camera they are more sexualised.”
Ella Bache was able to show the ad on the lightbox, because it is not owned by an OMA member.
The 3m x 3m installation – provided by specialist lighting agency Spinifex – also spent a few days near the Sydney Opera House.
The ASB will not automatically consider whether the ad appearing at Customs House breached its rules – it would require a complaint from a member of the public to trigger an investigation.
Oh my God! Pretty models are smiling! The outrage!
Oh the humanity!
According to the high priests of the Nanny State, this smiling is “sexual”.
Yet….and yet….the naked women are declared “empowered”. Empowered to do what?
Send an invoice to the photographer?
This Advertising Standards Board is the biggest load of nonsense in marketing history. Pack ’em up and ship them off to some totalitarian regime where they’ll feel at home.
User ID not verified.
Good on them.
Fantastic to see a client with guts in this age of PC-mania.
User ID not verified.
Oh, McCarthyist Mike, you’ve got it the wrong way around…..basic comprehension my friend.
User ID not verified.
“skin solutions as individual as you are”
Over a picture of 3 women who look basically the same.
Im only offended by the concept
User ID not verified.
“Sexualised”? Just what , exactly is Sexualised supposed to mean?
Made sexual? Three women showing no more of their bodies than any woman sitting on a beach in a bikini, is somehow sexualised advertising?
All is in the eyes and the brain of the beholder. There are three young women, presumably naked, we cannot see enough to state clearly that they are or are not, showing a large percentage of their beautiful young skin and either smiling or not , whilst advertising skin care products, said to be as individual as each one is.
If this sounds like sexualisation to you , then I suggest that you have more than a little problem in whatever part of your psyche defines and differentiates between sensual and sexual or charming and offensive or delight and concupiscence.
User ID not verified.
Ella Baché a brand for women using sexy shots of women to appeal to women. Where’s the harm?
Prudism is alive and well in Australia. Yawn.
User ID not verified.