More than 70,000 people signed a petition calling for the ads to be removed, dozens more defaced the campaign's posters and others even stripped down to their bikinis for a protest in Hyde Park, but on Wednesday the UK's advertising watchdog said the controversial "Are you beach body ready?" ads were not offensive or irresponsible.
The UK's Advertising Standards Authority received 378 complaints about the ad, which featured across the London Underground, promoting Protein World's slimming products.
In the complaints people said the ad was offensive because it implied that a body shape that differed from the idealised one presented was not good enough or inferior, they also said that an ad for a slimming product with a slim, toned body and a headline "Are you beach body ready?" was socially irresponsible.
But the ASA disagreed and said the Committee for Advertising Practices had given advice to Exterion Media, the outdoor adveritising company that ran the Protein World ads, ahead of the posters going up, which said prior to publication that they were "unlikely to cause serious or widespread offence".
"We considered the claim "Are you beach body ready" prompted readers to think about whether they were in the shape they wanted to be for the summer and we did not consider that the accompanying image implied that a different body shape to that shown was not good enough or was inferior," the ASA said in its ruling. "We concluded that the headline and image were unlikely to cause serious or widespread offence." "We concluded that the headline and image were unlikely to cause serious or widespread offence."
It also said it didn't think the images would "shame women" into believing they needed to take a slimming supplement, like Protein World's, before wearing a bikini in public.
Overall it said the company's intention was to "invite" the viewer to consider if they were in the shape that they wanted to be in.
Eating disorder charity Beat said the ruling was "extremely disappointing" maintaining the advert is irresponsible.
"While we recognise advertising and the media cannot cause eating disorders - they are much more complex than that - we are aware how toxic images can be to an individual," Beat's Head of Communications Rebecca Field said in a statement emailed to Mashable.
"While continuing to promote a slender body image as the only one we should aspire to the Protein World advert advertises diet products, only adding to the harmful effect it could have on those susceptible to an eating disorder."
Fuente: mashable.com
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