Missguided ad banned for objectifying women

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Mar 4, 2020

Another fast-fashion retailer has fallen foul of regulations around advertising with Missguided having had an ad banned because it objectifies women.

The image concerned was used on a poster and showed a model wearing a jacket with nothing else underneath, as well as tights and high heels. In the image, part of one of her breasts was exposed.

The ad had appeared on railway station platforms last November and several parents had complained to the Advertising Standards Authority as a result.

The ads watchdog agreed with them and said that the image “presented women as sexual objects. The focus was on the model’s chest area and lower abdomen, rather than the clothing”.

It's not the first time Missguided has come under fire for this reason and an ad shown during hit TV show Love Island was also banned on the same grounds.

In its defence of the image, the mainly-online retailer had said that the poster was “in keeping" with industry norms.

And that seems to be the problem for many people who object to such advertising imagery. They have major concerns that print and online marketing images for many fast-fashion companies – including the company-generated and user-generated pictures that appear on social media accounts such as Instagram – are becoming ever more sexual.

Only last month, rival online fashion retailer PrettyLittleThing (PLT) also saw an ad being banned for portraying women as sexual objects.

And the clampdown doesn't only relate to imagery but to the words used in advertising. PLT owner Boohoo had a piece of marketing for its signature Boohoo label banned due to the use of the words “send nudes”. While it was intended to relate to the colour nude, the ASA said that it made light of a "potentially harmful social trend”.