ASA Watch

An Instagram post by Jaded London, a clothing retailer, seen on 29 September 2024, featured two images. The first image featured a nude woman wearing a motorbike helmet and boots. She was placed between two motorbike wheels and was holding the front wheel, while her feet were on the back wheel. The second image featured a woman wearing a motorbike helmet, boots and a faux fur coat that was raised to expose her bottom. She was placed between two motorbike wheels and was holding the front wheel, while her feet were on the back wheel. A caption on the post stated Introducing our newest collaboration with @newrock. 4 styles. Hand crafted in Spain. Launching 3rd October. Stay tuned.

A complainant, who believed that the images objectified and sexualised women, challenged whether the ad was offensive and promoted a harmful gender stereotype.

Jaded London Ltd believed that the ad did not objectify or sexualise women. They said the purpose of the ad was to celebrate the strength of the female form and had received positive feedback from their customers, who they believed were predominately female. They said they wanted to ensure their customers felt respected.

ASA Assessment: Complaint upheld

The CAP Code stated that ads must be prepared with a sense of responsibility to consumers and to society, must not cause serious or widespread offence and must not include gender stereotypes that were likely to cause harm.

The women were seen holding the front wheels of a motorbike while their legs were on the back wheels, which meant that their bodies and arms were stretched out in a horizontal position. That gave the impression that they formed the main component of a bike. The ASA considered this suggested they should be viewed as parts of machinery and as objects, rather than as people. Both women were wearing motorbike helmets, meaning their faces were not visible. We considered obscuring the women's faces made their bodies the focus of the ad and further presented them as objects.

The women's bodies were positioned so their buttocks were in the place of the motorbike seat and both women's legs were bent at the knees. That had the effect of raising their buttocks in a manner which would have been understood as being sexually suggestive, as well as being a central focus of the ad. The woman's body in the first image was entirely naked, meaning her breasts and buttocks were exposed, which added to that sexual impression. The woman in the second image was wearing a faux fur coat. However, the coat was raised, which exposed both her legs and her buttocks and made them the focus of the image. We acknowledged that the raised coat could have been interpreted as a reference to a motorbike moving at speed as the wind blew the coat upwards. However, we considered exposing her buttocks in that manner gave the image a voyeuristic feel. We considered that by presenting the women as motorbikes, in conjunction with the nudity and sexually suggestive position in which their bodies were posed, the images featured the harmful gender stereotype that women were sexual objects.

Although the ad promoted a shoe brand, we considered the women's bodies were the focus of the images, not the boots, and the nudity was not relevant to the products. For those reasons, we considered that the ad objectified the women depicted and gave the impression that their bodies were sexual objects. We therefore concluded that the ad included a harmful gender stereotype and was likely to cause serious offence.

The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told Jaded London Ltd to ensure that future ads were socially responsible and did not cause serious offence, including by featuring a harmful gender stereotype by objectifying or sexualising women.

A paid-for ad for comedian Fern Brady, seen on the Sky News website on 18 August. The ad contained an image with the text FERN BRADY at the top and I GAVE YOU MILK TO DRINK overlayed on a stained-glass window. The image contained a woman with Fern Brady's face, holding a baby, and spraying milk directly from her partially obscured breast into the mouth of a kneeling holy figure.

A complainant challenged whether the ad was offensive, because they believed it mocked the Christian faith.

Fern Brady explained that the image in the ad was a direct recreation of the religious painting titled The Lactation of St. Bernard. That artwork, created in the 17th century by Spanish painter Alonso Cano, depicted the Virgin Mary nursing St. Bernard of Clairvaux by spraying milk from her breast into his mouth. The painting was well known within Christian art and had been widely accepted and respected within religious contexts for centuries.

The ad creatively referenced that image, by using satire and humour as part of Fern Brady's comedic brand. The intention was not to mock or belittle the original religious significance, but to offer a contemporary interpretation that aligned with her public persona as a comedian known for her irreverent style and her religious up-bringing. The text I GAVE YOU MILK TO DRINK overlayed a stained-glass window, which emphasised the artistic and cultural reference rather than aiming to offend. Efforts had been made to avoid any unintentional offence, in particular by covering Fern's breast with a beam of light, which differed from the original painting.

Fern Brady acknowledged that religious imagery was a sensitive area, and had approached the ad with the knowledge that the original painting was a respected piece of Christian art. However, humour was also subjective, and she believed while some may have found the portrayal distasteful, that did not necessarily mean it was likely to cause serious or widespread offence. Fern Brady believed that in the context of satire and artistic reenactment, the ad instead reflected a long tradition of artistic reinterpretation.

ASA Assessment: complaint upheld

The CAP Code stated that ads must not contain anything that was likely to cause serious or widespread offence. Particular care must be taken to avoid causing offence on certain grounds, including religion or belief.

We acknowledged Fern Brady's comment that the ad was based on the religious painting titled The Lactation of St. Bernard, which we understood showed the miracle of Chatillon-sur-Seine, in which St. Bernard received divine grace from the Virgin Mary.

We understood that the painting on which the image was based had been selected for comic effect. Because of the subject matter of Fern Brady's material, the effect had been compounded by deviations from the original painting, such as her knowing the text I GAVE YOU MILK TO DRINK, a ray of light shining through a stained glass window and across her breast, and the more exaggerated presentation of the milk. Regardless of consumers' familiarity with the painting, or the content of Fern Brady's work, we considered the ad, which appeared on a general news website, was likely to be seen as depicting the Virgin Mary, a highly revered individual in the Christian tradition, breastfeeding an adult holy figure in a church setting, for the purposes of humour. In that context, we considered that the ad was likely to be seen as mocking the religious figures shown. We therefore concluded that it was likely to cause serious offence to some within the Christian faith who saw the ad on the site.

The ad must not appear again in the form complained of, in media in which it was likely to cause serious offence. We told Fern Brady to take care to not cause offence on the grounds of religion in future ads.

An in-app ad for the mobile game Whispers: Interactive Romance Stories , seen on 30 October 2023 in the mobile game app Virtual Families 3 . The ad featured an animated scene of a blindfolded woman kneeling on the floor while a man standing in front of her held her face in his hand. A speech bubble appeared which was labelled Niece. She said to him, Uncle, please punish me. On-screen text then appeared which stated 20 years ago. The scene cut to the woman as a young child at a funfair. She said, Uncle, this place is so fun! He held out his arms, lifted her into the air and nuzzled into her cheek. She said to him, Uncle, I will marry you when I grow up! The ad then returned to the opening scene with the woman blindfolded in a kneeling position and her statement, Uncle, please punish me. Two buttons appeared: Accept and Reject. An animated finger reached out from the bottom of the screen as though it was going to press the Accept button and then did the same thing with the Reject button.

A complainant who challenged whether, by featuring a potentially incestuous relationship between an uncle and his niece, the ad was offensive and irresponsible.

Gamehaus Network Technology Co Ltd did not respond to the ASA's enquiries.

ASA Assessment: Complaint Upheld

The ASA was concerned by Gamehaus Network Technology Co Ltd's lack of response and apparent disregard for the Code, which was a breach of CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 1.7 (Unreasonable delay). We reminded them of their responsibility to respond promptly to our enquiries and told them to do so in future.

The ad appeared in the Virtual Families 3 mobile game, which had a PEGI 3 rating meaning it was suitable for people of all ages, including children.

It highlighted the relationship between an uncle and his niece. In the first and last scenes, she was portrayed as an adult and was blindfolded in a kneeling position. She said, Uncle, please punish me. We considered that consumers would be likely to understand from her blindfolded, kneeling stance and her request to be punished that she appeared willing to engage in sado-masochistic, sexual behaviour with her uncle. We further considered that the flashback to the funfair scene when she was a child and her statement that she would marry her uncle when she was grown up, added to the impression of them having an incestuous relationship and had overtones of a child being viewed as a sexual object and groomed by an adult relative. We concluded that the ad had the effect of portraying a child in a sexual way.

Because the ad featured scenes depicting an incestuous relationship between an uncle and his niece, and suggested that a child had been sexualised and groomed by an adult, we concluded it was likely to cause serious and widespread offence in any medium in which it appeared, and portrayed a child in a sexual way and was therefore irresponsible.

The ad must not appear again in the form complained of.

Three posters for Calvin Klein, seen in April 2023:

• a. The first poster featured the singer FKA Twigs who was shown wearing a denim shirt that was drawn halfway around her body, leaving the side of her buttocks and half of one breast exposed. Text at the top of the poster stated Calvins or nothing.

• b. The second poster, which appeared alongside ad (a), featured the model and media personality Kendall Jenner who was shown, from side-on, topless with her hands held across her bare chest, and a pair of jeans on her bottom half. At the top of the poster was the same text as ad (a).

• c. The third poster featured Kendall Jenner who was shown lying on her back, wearing underwear and pulling down a pair of jeans past her hips. Text superimposed, and which went partly across Jenner's crotch, stated Calvins or nothing.

The ASA received two complaints. The complainants, who believed the images were overly sexualised, challenged whether the ads were:

1. offensive and irresponsible, because they objectified women; and

2. inappropriate for display in an untargeted medium. Response

Calvin Klein Inc. said the ads were similar to ads they had been publishing in the UK for many years. They said that they were well known for being a pioneering and progressive brand that engaged in a range of equity and equality focused partnerships. In their view, the ads did not overly sexualise Kendall Jenner or FKA Twigs and were not irresponsible.

ASA Assessment: Complaints upheld for image (a) only

The ASA understood the ads were for the Calvin Klein brand and their range of clothes, and that they formed part of a wider campaign that also included images of well-known men. However, not all of the ads in the campaign were displayed together. We therefore assessed the ads under investigation on the merits of their individual content and the context in which they were displayed.

Ad (a) showed FKA Twigs modelling a denim shirt. FKA Twigs' buttocks and breast were exposed, and her shirt was draped over one shoulder and drawn halfway across her body. We considered the image's composition placed viewers' focus on the model's body rather than on the clothing being advertised. The ad used nudity and centred on FKA Twig's physical features rather than the clothing, to the extent that it presented her as a stereotypical sexual object. We therefore concluded ad (a) was irresponsible and likely to cause serious offence.

The images had appeared on posters, an untargeted medium, where they were likely to be seen by children and adults. We considered all of the ads included images of women who were sexualised to a degree. We understood the posters had not been placed within 100 metres of a school. Notwithstanding the fact that ad (a) was unsuitable on the grounds of objectification, we considered whether the level of sexualisation in each of the ads was appropriate for general display.

Ad (a) depicted FKA Twigs with a shirt partially draped around her body, and in doing so showed half of one breast and the side of her buttocks. Her nudity and facial expression, including a direct gaze and open mouth, gave the image an overall sexual overture. We therefore considered ad (a) was overtly sexual and was not suitable for display in an untargeted medium.

Ad (a) must not appear again in the form complained of. We told Calvin Klein Inc. to ensure that future ads did not irresponsibly objectify women and were targeted appropriately.