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A small Adelaide lingerie firm has shot to international attention after their saucy ad shot around a tyre shop was pulled from television screens. The ad for Innerware Lingerie was the target of an upheld complaint to the Advertising Standards Board about the footage being in poor taste.
Created by Crisp Advertising in North Adelaide, it showed a woman in underwear driving to a tyre shop and asking the man behind the counter "can you fit me?" The ad was supposed to publicise that the South Australian family business offered professional bra fitting. However the ASB found that it breached a section of the standards that required any treatment of sexuality to be done with “sensitivity to the relevant audience".
"The board considered that the advertisement did have a strong sexual suggestion with the combination of the woman wearing lingerie, her sexualised strutting, the focus on her body and the sexualised conversation," the case report said. "In the board's view the level of sexualisation was not sensitive even to an M classification."
Innerware Lingerie's owners Evan and Tina Zorba have now modified the commercial -- with the new version now being screened on television -- and have told ASB and the media no offence was intended. Mr Zorba told the Adelaide Advertiser the intention was to create a fun ad on a low budget - "and my wife was the one who wanted something more exciting. The idea was about having fun with it, we didn't want to offend anyone, it was a bit cheeky," he said.
In a response to the board, Innerware said: "On behalf of Innerware and Crisp Advertising, please accept our sincere apologies for any inconvenience that we inadvertently caused." Crisp Advertising echoed Mr Zorba's sentiments, saying the agency had no intention of offending people with the ad -- the brainchild of creative director Richard Miller.
"The clients' brief was to create an ad that would give them some cut-through -- and with a limited advertising budget," Mr Miller said. "We wanted to make an ad that would create some frenzy and get the brand name out there. There was never any wish to cause offense to anybody, but it did create some discussion and a bit of a backlash."
However, he said the banning of the ad had still given Innerware valuable publicity. "They seem to be happy ... they saw increased sales and a higher profile for the brand," Mr Miller said. "So it's a good outcome regardless. And we've seen that in the comments on stories (about the ad being banned) there is no negativity about the ad itself -- the negative comments are about the complaints.
Watch the banned lingerie ad video here.
This reporter is on Twitter: @KarlaPincott
