Menswear chain Roger David is the latest fashion retailer to feel the brunt of the standards watchdog, with a campaign featuring a teenage girl "gagged" with the union flag banned on sexual grounds.
The Advertising Standards Bureau ruled the ad, which also saw the model sport a barcode tattoo reading 'slave', breached a code concerning the sensitive treatment of sex, sexuality and nudity to the relevant audience.
Roger David stated the creative was intended to promote its New Love Club clothing range, with four male models wearing different t-shirts also featured below the girl.
However, the Bureau upheld several complaints against the material after considering the girl was depicted in a way which made her appear younger than 18.
“The Board considered that the overall impression of the part of the advertising material which depicted the girl was that of a girl presented as a sexual object – due to a combination of factors in particular the age of the girl, the text ‘new love club’ and the tattoo of the word ‘slave’ on her arm.”
“The Board also considered that the image of the girl could be seen to be suggestive of the girl being held against her will – with the ‘slave’ reference on her arm and the depiction of her with an object filling her mouth which, in the Board’s view, evoked a sense of the girl being ‘gagged’.”
“The Board considered that the advertisement inappropriately depicted a young girl in a sexualised manner and that this depiction was not a treatment of sexuality in a manner sensitive to the relevant, in this case adult male, audience."
Roger David defended its decision to run the campaign.
"It shows an 18-year-old woman who is fully clothed with a union jack badge in her mouth, forming the shape of a heart with her hands,” the company said.
“The union jack badge and the heart shape are references to the fact that "New Love Club" is a United Kingdom menswear clothing company. New Love Club uses a heart as one of its motifs. The woman used in the campaign was 18 years of age at the time that the photograph of her was shot.”
ROGER DAVID: Banned campaign.
