In an astonishing development Lee Jeans’ controversial ‘Lolita’ advertisement campaign for spring-summer 2006, has been declared acceptable by the Advertising Standards Board. The advertisement campaign has portrayed a young woman in sexually explicit pose; however, the advertisement watchdog has considered it inoffensive. The board has dismissed the complaints about the campaign saying the ad was not appropriate despite having sexual overtones. The advertisement was being displayed at South Yarra railway station on a billboard.
According to the reports, the board held that the woman in advertising is over 18, and is dressed up in a fashion that is prevalent or fashionable among young women for summer. Further, it ruled out that consumption of this style of lollipop is now frequent among young women. Many groups including Australian Childhood Foundation had expressed deep anguish over the advertisement campaign.
The campaign was shot by the famous US photographer Terry Richardson, who is believed to have been paid $200,000 for the assignment. The amount is almost ten times what an average Australian photographer would earn for the same ad campaign.
On the other hand, the company has described its campaign as ‘tongue in cheek, kitschy and over-exaggerated portrayal of classic denim poses’. Following is the preview of entire campaign.
that is absoltely friggin’ disgusting. As a mum i find the images portrayed to be disgusting. not even a lingerie catalogue is that feral, actually reminds me of the magazine playboy. Get it together & employ people with taste. By the way you overpaid the people who worked on the campaign :)
As a mother as well, I find your whining, disgusting. Stop being a pansy! Have you ever seen a playboy?? This is nothing, hunny. I feel sorry for your overly sheltered children.
This is an absolute disgrace. With the current issues the world has with child pornography and paedophilia, you would expect a degree of corporate responsibility (if there is such a thing these days!) to come into play when it comes to it’s own advertising. Portraying this kind of male/female behaviour is wrong. Regardless of their defence the insinuatiion of paedophilia is there... Shame on Lee Jeans and shame on the ABS for allowing such rubbish to be printed.
Absolutely bloody disgusting.
Tasteless, embarrassing and slutty.
I can see nipple.
Tell me, are ’the board’ male by any chance?
Well, guess who will be buying jeans other than Lee ones from now on? - You are supposed to be selling JEANS!!
Idiots
Yuck! I’m not a prude but this is gross. I will not be buying Lee jeans.
umm the top in picture six is really nice. i think the idea of the ads is to catch your attention and it does. if you think your teenage sons and daughters arent in these or see these positions regularily you are very deluded. i am still going to buy lee clothing, maybe even more so now.
and why are u all bringing up child pornography and paedophilia? it completely different they are both obviously adults, and if you allow ur ”children” to wear and dress in clothes older than they should thats really your fault.
Shae,
How can the topic of child pornography and paedophilia not be brought up? They have a young woman dressed up as an oversexed young girl in sexual positions? What does that tell you?
What’s more these images are on a billboard at a railway station where people of all ages commute. If they really have to have these ads, they should’ve kept it as print ads in a magazine that children don’t usually come across.
”if you think your teenage sons and daughters arent in these or see these positions regularily you are very deluded.”
This is the very reason why parents don’t want these ads up. It just communicates the wrong message and encourages girls to look like whores and think that there is nothing wrong with it when in fact there is.
They could be instigating so many feelings and thoughts. It’s a call for unnecessary attention.
Quite frankly, the ad company have no morals and did a terrible job with the ads.
Can you imagine young girls (not just teenagers) walking around the malls in outfits such as those in the ads? It’d be like walking through a red light district.
These girls will be thinking it’s ’tongue-in-cheek’ but really, it’s degrading.
There’s a fine line between sexy and trashy.
These Lolita ads are TRASH.
I wasn’t thinking about anything with child porn... so what’s wrong with you?
So it’s trashy? What’s it to you? Your kids don’t have to see it, it’s called be a freaking parent! I can’t stand people not taking personal responsibility. I bet you’re one of those parents who, instead of not letting your child watch a certain channel, you rally to have it taken off TV because you suck as a parent.
I have a quick fix to your problems about little girls dressing like sluts.
Try parenting.
I agree with Mitsukai, stop wasting time on complaining about something that is around everywhere in modern day society, and go teach your kids that it’s not the accepted thing to do at that age.
By accepting the content of such ads and normalising it in our society we are implying that it is the accepted behaviour and push the concept as the expected thing to do.
Ok how about this for a modern day society - the sexualisation of our children and young girls that enables the misconception that girls are just bodies, nothing else.
One in four girls are sexually abused and one in five boys or maybe they weren’t parented properly? Parents can only protect a little but they cant walk behind a child screening their eyes and ears every minute of every day. By disregarding the links between sexualisation of our advertising, children, childrens goods and abuse, you are condoning the behaviour of those that prey on our most vulnerable.
Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.
Awesome ads. Sexy and erotic. They really fit with today’s society.
We are nothing more than cattle to be herded around by the adults. We are told what to do, when to do it and how to do it. Our rights are severely limited, and we can be tried as adults anyways. So frankly, it is annoying when adults overreact to things like this. Know why they market things in this way? For you, the adults. They are targeted towards adults and teenagers because a five year old isn’t going to have a clue what the big deal is until his parents start complaining about it. And still you have the gall to say that this is ’disgusting’ when a teen can easily get his/her hands on any kind of pornographic material. So unless you want to live like the radical Muslims, with all the women wrapped from head to toe in clothing (ironically, women are even MORE objectified in those cultures than in ours) deal with the fact that sex exists. It is your own fault that things are marketed like this, live up to it. Stop being prudes and actually TALK TO YOUR KIDS when you think they are ready to know about sex. And don’t just give them the BS ’abstinence’ line. It doesn’t work. Look at the teen pregnancy rate in Britain and the US. Don’t demonize what is natural, you’ll only screw things up.
They mustn’t accept this ads... It’s porno...
Man, you guys need some vagisil, big time! There is nothing wrong with these ad’s. People just have nothing better to do with their time than whine and cry about lame crap. Get over it!
