Wicked backs down in row over ‘sexist and misogynistic’ slogans
Wicked Campers has pledged to remove controversial slogans from the side of its vans following protests from a lobby group led by a Sydney school teacher.
John Webb, owner of the publicity-hungry campervan firm, said it will remove slogans, that have been branded sexist and misogynistic, over the next six months.
One reads: “In every princess there’s a little slut who wants to try it just once’, while another says ‘Women are like banks. Once you withdraw you lose interest’.
The slogans, which have seen the company scolded on several occasions by the Advertising Standards Board (ASB) including two new rulings this week, sparked outrage with teacher Paula Orbea drawing up a Change.org petition with 110,000 signatures.
Orbea, who claimed the slogans are degrading to women, harmful to children and “condones a rape culture”, said she received an email and apology from Webb.
According to Orbea, Webb has pledged to “to acknowledge the prevailing community opinion by removing the slogan in question and making a commitment over the coming six months to changing slogans of an insensitive nature”.
The petition and subsequent media attention, with the story receiving more than 150 mentions in the media this week, have succeeded where the ASB have failed for the past seven years by getting the brand to self-censor.
Steve Jones
The ASB is a total fucking waste of time.
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Good. Shame it took so long.
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About time,
I shudder to think what is in the minds of the designers. This sort of shock advertising we can do without. I hope they get busted big time.
I always laugh when I see a van broken down, but, I do stop to help the people.
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Who the hell finds these Wicked Campers ads funny anyway? Are us men really that infantile? The slogans they put on the vans don’t shock me, not much does; they do however make me cringe with embarrasment for my fellow men who find them funny or representative.
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The ASB is as useful as tots on a bull.
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Another Agency: ” The ASB is a total fucking waste of time”. I wonder if the great upholder of moral standards Ms Obea would be outraged by your use of the “F” word, was her daughter distressed or just her feigned outrage and the abilityas a female to have a go. Pretty much puts it in perspective for me cry moral outrage on the one hand and ignore it on the other.
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AT, what do you mean by “the ability as a female to have a go”?
I’d really like to know what you meant, I can’t figure it out.
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We live in a modern society, where peoplecan change what they don’t like or find offensive. The issue about Wicked Campers offensive slogans was brought to my attention this week, and I jumped onboard straight away….I am happy to support the efforts to get rid of awful attitudes towards women. There are many awesome guys out there, wich include my husband, who also support the movement against this sort of offensive material.
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I think it’s a mistake to close down tacky vehicles for misogyny such as those displayed by Wicked. The juvenile and misogynistic humour on Wicked vans was a daily reminder on our roads that Australia is a nation of fuckwits, most of whom are males with adolescent minds trapped in their beer-bloated bodies.
Attacks on females by partners, family members, work mates, friends, acquaintances and strangers will continue at exactly the same rate as before. Attacks on males, which is a bigger problem than attacks on females in terms of the numbers of males murdered and seriously injured every year in Australia, will continue as before.
The principal driver of assault in Australia, as it is in every western country, is alc=ohol (sic). While the wimmin and the girly men focus their moral outrage on trying to abolish all the unimportant things that will thereby have no effect upon the rates of violent assault, the alcohol industry can continue to laugh itself even sick and richer.
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