Ad watchdog says it’s not okay to lose your shit on a billboard
Hydrotherapy and colonic irrigation business Aqua Cleanse has been forced to remove its “highly offensive and totally repulsive” billboard featuring the tagline “It’s okay to lose your sh*t sometimes because if you don’t you’ll end up full of sh*t”.
A complaint received by the Ad Standards Board said the ad contained offensive language with a “repulsive message”, with AquaHealth claiming it was not their intention to offend.
“Our poster was designed to employ a cheeky sense of humour to get its point across. We haven’t used any profane, offensive language. I thought we tiptoed around the subject quite artfully,” the company stated.
As the billboard was located near a school, the ad watchdog noted despite the ‘i’ being replaced with an asterisk, people could still identify the word ‘shit’.
The ad watchdog said although using the word ‘shit’ in the advertisement was relevant to the product, it was coined in a rather aggressive tone, and was displayed in areas were families and children frequented.
After the complaint was upheld, AquaHealth said it would replace the word ‘sh*t’ with the poo emoji instead.
Abigail Dawson was Mumbrella's senior content journalist covering event content. She left Mumbrella to move into an agency role in 2020.
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