Luxury lingerie retailer Honey Birdette has defended its use of campaign materials, after one of its sponsored Facebook posts was called into question.
The post included a video of a woman in black lace lingerie smoking a cigar.
Australian advertising watchdog Ad Standards (AS) ruled Honey Birdette breached, with its depiction of smoking, Section 2.6 of the AANA Code of Ethics around prevailing community standards on health and safety.
A complainant’s submission to the AS stated that the ad sexualises and objectifies women, by showing a woman in sheer lingerie.
“The camera pans up and down her body in an objectifying way. She is smoking a cigar. The ad essentially advertises and promotes smoking, which is known to cause cancer.”
Honey Birdette said as a luxury lingerie retailer, models are required to wear lingerie in its advertising.
“It will therefore be difficult for us to please a complainant who believes that showing a woman in sheer lingerie means that she has been ‘sexualised’, ‘objectified’ and is ‘virtually naked’.
“Our model is sitting in a chair with her legs crossed and a cigar in her mouth. Her nipples are not even visible in our heavily embroidered bra. Our model is seen with a cigar in her mouth for two seconds.
“We do not sell cigars so have no interest in their ‘promotion’, as the complainant suggests. Like the cowboy hat, the cigar was one of the many props used to create our Western-themed campaign.”
The AS Panel considered that the advertisement did not employ sexual appeal in a manner which is exploitative of the woman and was relevant to the promotion of lingerie.
But the Panel considered that it has consistently upheld complaints about advertising which showed people smoking cigarettes, and that while the community tolerates a level of smoking it does not tolerate images which promote smoking as glamorous or fashionable.