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Be stupid Diesel ads banned by ASA

By FashionUnited

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Fashion

Fashion brand Diesel have been banned from using two posters likely to cause “serious offence” to adults by the advertising watchdog responding to 33 complaints. The first poster featured an image of a woman holding open her bikini

bottoms with one hand and taking a photograph of her genitals with the other while a lion prowls behind her.

The second advertisement showed an image of a woman on a stepladder lifting her top and exposing her breasts to a security camera. Both ads displayed the text “smart may have the brains, but stupid has the balls. Be stupid. Diesel.”

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) received 33 complaints objecting that the ads were unsuitable to be seen by children, were offensive and condoned or encouraged behaviour that was anti-social.

Diesel defended the campaign in the following statement: “[the first poster] portrayed a very strong and unexpected image of femininity, aligning it with typically masculine themes such as the lion and that the confident behaviour in combination with the use of the text "Stupid has the balls" described her way of thinking.”

The fashion brand added: “[the second poster] showed the woman on the ladder in a non-exploitative way and that the message tackled society’s pre-occupation with 24/7 camera surveillance, yet in a light and non-threatening way,” arguing that “collectively the Be Stupid campaign was a rallying call to do things differently from the accepted wisdom and to live a life less ordinary.”

The ASA acknowledged that none of the ads showed full frontal nudity but concluded that the posters contained sexual undertones: “We noted both ads were posters and therefore appeared in an untargeted medium that were difficult to avoid and were likely to be seen by children. We considered the image of the woman in the first poster was likely to cause serious offence to many adults because it was clear that she was taking a photograph of her genitalia and that the image of the woman exposing herself on the ladder in the second poster ad was likely to cause serious or widespread offence because, although her breasts were only partially visible, the image showed her exposing herself to a surveillance camera.”

The ASA also commented: “We were further concerned that the images of young women photographing their genitalia and exposing their breasts to a camera in a public place were unsuitable to be displayed on posters, an untargeted medium that was likely to be seen by children, because of the overt ‘sexualisation’ involved in the depicted acts.”

The watchdog ruled that both ads fell foul of the responsible advertising and the decency codes and should not appear again in poster form.

A further two ads from the same campaign, which featured in the magazines Grazia and Dazed and Confused, avoided the ban because they were unlikely to be seen by children because the magazines were aimed specifically at adults and both publications included material that covered sexual themes, which were unlikely to cause serious or widespread offence to readers.
Advertising Standards Authority
Diesel