Thirteen complaints enough to warrant withdrawal of Ryanair ‘Schoolgirl’ ad
January 31, 2008 – 10:09 pmJust thirteen complaints from newspaper readers who found a Ryanair ad offensive was enough for Britain’s Advertising Standards Authority to demand the budget airline cease using the ad.
The ad features an adult dressed as a schoolgirl with the headline Hottest Back To School Fares. Offensive? C’mon, a trip to the mall and your likely to see girls dressed more “offensively:”
Despite only thirteen complaints, the ASA found the ad was likely to cause serious or widespread offence.
The ASA considered the model’s clothing, which included long white socks and a tie, together with the setting of the ad in a classroom strongly suggested she was a schoolgirl. We considered that her appearance and pose, in conjunction with the heading “HOTTEST,” appeared to link teenage girls with sexually provocative behaviour and was irresponsible…
But Ryanair is standing firm. Their head of communications Peter Sherrard said it would not stop running the advert:
“This isn’t advertising regulation, it is simply censorship. This bunch of unelected self-appointed dimwits are clearly incapable of fairly and impartially ruling on advertising.”
In their response to the ASA, Ryanair pointed out that the ad ran in three national daily newspapers with a combined circulation of 3.5 million. In that context, 13 complaints was an insignificant number and not representative of broader community views.
They also said the ad had no sexual connotations and was representative of the type of clothing that was fashionable among young women in the UK.
One Response to “Thirteen complaints enough to warrant withdrawal of Ryanair ‘Schoolgirl’ ad”
Mike….
it had to happen, and we need more people like you championing this cause.
Living in Canada, my view is that battles were fought, lives lost and blood shed to establish the freedom from imposition upon minorities.
Since the 60’s, the minorities want to reverse this,
and in the grand tradition of the feminist model, hijack
the moral highground so that, in their moral hysteria
they will be free to assault and destroy, and to impose themselves upon the majority.
Ideology, typically lacking common sense or a firm grasp of the obvious, misses simple things like “too many cooks spoil the soup”.
My view, is that if we are going to be reduced to playing on this level, then we need to start a movement where it is an indictable offence against the goodness and decency of society to not have a sense of humor.
And their should be standard tests, in which people who want to play petty fascist from the moral highground, have to demonstrate to a committee of their peers that they have a good sense of humor, and
most especially, that they can laugh at themselves.
chriss
By chris smolyk on Nov 18, 2008