An artificial grass company has been ordered to remove an advertising billboard after it was found to be “degrading” and “objectifying” to women.
The ad showed a woman wearing flesh-colored underwear and holding a flower pot in front of her crotch with a headline that said “no need to trim” and a winking emoji.
The Great Grass company sign appeared at the junction of Hollins Road and Manchester Road, near the M60 motorway in Oldham.
It is the second time the company has gotten into trouble for its advertising tactics after it was asked to remove a billboard sign at the same location two years ago.
A complainant said the latest poster objectified and sexualised women and was offensive, harmful and irresponsible.
An artificial grass company has been ordered to remove an advertising billboard after it was found to “degrade” and “objectify” women.
The sign was installed on the same sign, pictured, as the above, at the junction of Hollins Road and Manchester Road, near the M60 motorway in Oldham.
Great Grass, in response, told the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), the UK’s independent advertising regulator across all media, that the ad had been running for several months, stating that they had received 47 positive comments upon regard.
He also suggested that it had not offended the majority of the “hundreds of thousands” of people who had seen it, given that there had only been one complaint.
He added that it was a mistake to assume that the person featured in the ad was a woman when “they could equally well be a man or a transgender person.”
75Media, which owns the poster site, said it took the ASA’s concerns “very seriously” and would remove the advert immediately if it was found to breach advertising rules.
The authority said those who saw the ad would interpret the image as depicting a woman, due to her slim waist, curvy hips, thin arms and lack of obvious body hair, with the image of the flowerpot placed over her groin area and text. It would be understood as an allusion to both pruning a plant and trimming pubic hair.
He said many people would see the advert as a light-hearted reference to the low-maintenance properties of artificial grass.
But he added: “We consider, however, that the cropped image of a woman in underwear accompanied by text alluding to pubic hair had the effect of degrading and objectifying women by using their genitals to draw attention to an unrelated product. related”.
“We felt that the emoji next to the text, which showed a winking face with its tongue hanging out, contributed to the demeaning and mocking tone.
‘Because we considered that the advert objectified women, we further considered that it was likely to cause serious and widespread offense and included a gender stereotype in a way that was likely to cause harm. “We concluded that the advertisement was irresponsible and violated the code.”
Great Grass MCR, based in Failsworth, Oldham, was forced to remove an advertising billboard in November last year after the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), the UK’s independent regulator of advertising across all media, would rule against.
It decided the advert should not appear again, adding: “We told Great Grass to ensure its future adverts were socially responsible and did not cause serious or widespread offence, including by presenting a harmful gender stereotype by objectifying women.” .
In November 2022, Great Grass had to remove a 30-foot sign that boasted to customers that their lawn was “perfect 365 days a year…get laid with the best.”
The ad included a photo of a woman wearing only a thong, along with the headline “Artificial Turf Experts.”
On that occasion, the advertising watchdog ruled that women had been “objectified and stereotyped as sexual objects.”
The company then put up a replacement sign mocking people who complained, and even offered customers a 10 percent discount citing “NO OFFENDED.”
A spokesperson for Great Grass responded to the critics, telling the Manchester Evening News that it found it “frustrating that a complaint from just one person means we have to remove the advert”.
He added: ‘Do the thoughts of hundreds more who found it funny count for nothing? It just shows the way the world is going. Pleasing a few, not the masses. Awakening wins.’