Australia: Shoe advert that featured topless models wearing just their knickers with the slogan 'fancy a pair?' is banned for being 'degrading' to women



A shoe firm’s ad campaign - featuring female nudity alongside the phrase ‘fancy a pair?’ - has been banned for being ‘degrading’ to women.

Watchdogs ruled that the multimedia adverts for Goodwin Smith Shoes - accompanied by an image of three models wearing just knickers - ‘objectified’ women.

An investigation was launched after the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) received nine complaints about ads for the Lancashire-based firm.

The breasts of one of the women in the email were exposed, while the second covered her chest with her arm with her nipple exposed and the third posed in front of the others holding a pair of shoes over her chest.

The company’s website also included the claim ‘Fancy a pair?’ and was accompanied by an image of two women who were topless, wearing only knickers and covering their breasts with shoes.

Redfoot Shoes, trading as Goodwin Smith said that the campaign had attempted to portray a ‘fantasy concept’ in which the men were portrayed as being confident’, and was not meant to degrade women.

But the ASA found that the ads breached rules regarding social responsibility as well as harm and offence, and banned them from appearing again.

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