Voodoo ads not taboo despite sexism claims

By By Alexandra Roach | 25 June 2012
 
Complaints against the 'Use Your Voodoo' campaign for Pacific Brands were dismissed.

Pacific Brands has once again been cleared of complaints of sexism in its out-of-home advertising by the Advertising Standards Bureau, this time for its Voodoo hosiery brand. 

The ads in the firing line were for Pacific Brands' Voodoo Hosiery which was accused of being “objectifying”, “degrading” and “dehumanising” towards women.

The 'Use Your Voodoo' campaign for Voodoo Hoisery has been seen on billboards and buses around the country, featuring black-and-white photography of women wearing Voodoo stockings. The models are pictured only from the waist down, which spawned complaints of sexism.

The ASB dismissed the complaints and said: “The image shown is not about promoting the woman as an object but about highlighting some of the range available in Voodoo stockings and about how nice legs wearing the product appear.

“It is reasonable to expect an advertisement for hosiery to feature imagery of hosiery ie: stockings and noted that the advertisement is aimed at women seeking to buy them.”

One complainant wrote of the Voodoo ad: “The exclusion of any other body part of the models (coupled with the position of their legs) serves to dehumanise the women as persons, reduce them to parts and objectify them as merely parts of city landscape to be looked at. Their legs are placed in various positions ...[showing no] other characteristic of these ladies, reducing them to a physical or sexual thing.”

Another complainant wrote: “One image in particular is supremely offensive. A female model, her face not visible, is kneeling or crawling while presenting her derriere upwards. The line invites us to...'use our voodoo.' An invitation of that kind in the context of the image I imagine can only relate to the female's sex or sexuality.”

Pacific Brands argued the ads are “entirely appropriate within the context of being an advertisement for hosiery.”

“We reject the claim that this advertisement portrays women in a sexualised or demeaning way,” read the brand's response. “The decision to shoot legs only was intended to keep the focus on the hosiery product, if the imagery was to show full body including face it would become harder to ensure that viewers will notice the legs first and foremost.”

The company also drew on the brand's history of saucy advertising and “distinctive brand positioning”, which has previously featured naked men alongside hosiery-clad women. “The idea of feminine power has always been at the heart of the brand’s advertising idea.”

Pacific's lingerie brand Berlei attracted further complaints despite having been exonerated earlier this month. The new complaints were also dismissed.

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