In an astonishing development Lee Jeans’ controversial ‘Lolita’ advertisement campaign for spring-summer 2006, has been declared acceptable by the Advertising Standards Board. The advertisement campaign has portrayed a young woman in sexually explicit pose; however, the advertisement watchdog has considered it inoffensive. The board has dismissed the complaints about the campaign saying the ad was not appropriate despite having sexual overtones. The advertisement was being displayed at South Yarra railway station on a billboard.
According to the reports, the board held that the woman in advertising is over 18, and is dressed up in a fashion that is prevalent or fashionable among young women for summer. Further, it ruled out that consumption of this style of lollipop is now frequent among young women. Many groups including Australian Childhood Foundation had expressed deep anguish over the advertisement campaign.
The campaign was shot by the famous US photographer Terry Richardson, who is believed to have been paid $200,000 for the assignment. The amount is almost ten times what an average Australian photographer would earn for the same ad campaign.
On the other hand, the company has described its campaign as ‘tongue in cheek, kitschy and over-exaggerated portrayal of classic denim poses’. Following is the preview of entire campaign.
Comments
that is absoltely friggin’ disgusting. As a mum i find the images portrayed to be disgusting. not even a lingerie catalogue is that feral, actually reminds me of the magazine playboy. Get it together & employ people with taste. By the way you overpaid the people who worked on the campaign :)
This is an absolute disgrace. With the current issues the world has with child pornography and paedophilia, you would expect a degree of corporate responsibility (if there is such a thing these days!) to come into play when it comes to it’s own advertising. Portraying this kind of male/female behaviour is wrong. Regardless of their defence the insinuatiion of paedophilia is there... Shame on Lee Jeans and shame on the ABS for allowing such rubbish to be printed.
Absolutely bloody disgusting.
Tasteless, embarrassing and slutty.
I can see nipple.
Tell me, are ’the board’ male by any chance?
Yuck! I’m not a prude but this is gross. I will not be buying Lee jeans.
Shae,
How can the topic of child pornography and paedophilia not be brought up? They have a young woman dressed up as an oversexed young girl in sexual positions? What does that tell you?
What’s more these images are on a billboard at a railway station where people of all ages commute. If they really have to have these ads, they should’ve kept it as print ads in a magazine that children don’t usually come across.
”if you think your teenage sons and daughters arent in these or see these positions regularily you are very deluded.”
This is the very reason why parents don’t want these ads up. It just communicates the wrong message and encourages girls to look like whores and think that there is nothing wrong with it when in fact there is.
They could be instigating so many feelings and thoughts. It’s a call for unnecessary attention.
Quite frankly, the ad company have no morals and did a terrible job with the ads.
Can you imagine young girls (not just teenagers) walking around the malls in outfits such as those in the ads? It’d be like walking through a red light district.
These girls will be thinking it’s ’tongue-in-cheek’ but really, it’s degrading.
There’s a fine line between sexy and trashy.
These Lolita ads are TRASH.
I have a quick fix to your problems about little girls dressing like sluts.
Try parenting.
I agree with Mitsukai, stop wasting time on complaining about something that is around everywhere in modern day society, and go teach your kids that it’s not the accepted thing to do at that age.