Artificial grass firm's 'no trimming needed' motorway billboard ad is banned for 'demeaning and objectifying' women
An artificial grass firm has been ordered to take down a billboard poster after it was found to be 'demeaning' and 'objectifying' women.
The ad featured a woman wearing flesh-coloured underwear and holding a potted plant in front of her crotch with a headline stating 'no trimming needed' and a wink emoji.
The poster for the Great Grass company appeared at the junction of Hollins Road and Manchester Road near the M60 motorway in Oldham.
It's the second time the firm has got into trouble over its advertising tactics, after being told to remove a poster from a hoarding in the same location two years ago.
A complainant said the latest billboard objectified and sexualised women and was offensive, harmful and irresponsible.
An artificial grass firm has been ordered to take down a billboard poster after it was found to be 'demeaning' and 'objectifying' women
The poster was installed on the same billboard as a previous one, pictured, at the junction of Hollins Road and Manchester Road near the M60 motorway in Oldham
Great Grass, in response, told the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), the UK's independent advertising regulator across all media, that the ad had been on display for several months, claiming they had received 47 positive comments about it.
It also suggested it had not offended most of the 'hundreds of thousands' of people who had seen it given there had only been one complaint.
It added it was wrong to assume that the person featured in the ad was a woman when it could 'equally be a man or a transgender person'.
75Media, which owned the poster site, said it took the ASA's concerns 'very seriously' and would remove the ad immediately if it was found to breach advertising rules.
The authority said those who saw the ad would interpret the image as featuring a woman, due to her slim waist, curved hips, slim arms and lack of obvious body hair, with the image of the pot plant placed over the groin area and the text would be understood as an allusion both to pruning a plant and to trimming pubic hair.
It said many people would see the ad as a light-hearted reference to the low-maintenance properties of artificial grass.
But it added: 'We considered, however, that the cropped image of a woman in underwear accompanied by text that alluded to pubic hair had the effect of demeaning and objectifying women by using their genitalia to draw attention to an unrelated product.
'We considered that the emoji next to the text, which featured a winking face with its tongue out, added to the degrading and mocking tone.
'Because we considered the ad objectified women, we further considered it was likely to cause serious and widespread offence and included a gender stereotype in a way that was likely to cause harm. We concluded that the ad was irresponsible and breached the code.'
After anger over the 'get laid by the best' ad, the firm replaced it with this poster of a topless male model
It ruled that the ad must not appear again, adding: 'We told Great Grass to ensure their future ads were socially responsible and did not cause serious or widespread offence, including by featuring a harmful gender stereotype by objectifying women.'
In November 2022, Great Grass had to take down a 30ft poster that bragged to customers that its turf was 'perfect 365 days a year…Get laid by the best'.
The ad included a photo of a woman wearing only a thong, alongside with the headline 'Artificial grarse experts.'
On that occasion, the advertising watchdog ruled it 'objectified and stereotyped women as sexual objects'.
The company then slapped up a replacement sign poking fun at the people who complained, and have even offered customers a 10 per cent discount by quoting 'NOT OFFENDED'.
A spokesman for Great Grass hit back at critics telling Manchester Evening News it found 'frustrating that a complaint by just one person means we have to remove the advert'.
It added: 'Do the thoughts of hundreds more who found it amusing count for nothing? It just shows the way that the world is going. Pandering to the few, not the masses. Woke wins.'
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