Brno - The Czech Advertising Standards Council, member of the European Advertising Standards Alliance (EASA), has ruled that the nude female body used to promote a Brno pawn shop called Index is offensive and immoral, as the nakedness of the woman is not related to the products sold by the shop.
A Brno-based group called Nesehnutí filed the complaint against Index to launch its campaign "The most sexist piggy", in which a winner of the most chauvinistic advertisement is going to be announced at the end of the summer.
"We perceive the Index ad as an unsubstantiated use of naked female body and we think it is insulting and cheap," Kristýna Pešáková of the Nesehnutí said.
"No one complained..."
But the Index firm argues that no one has complained about the ad. "We used a artistic photograph for this ad. The partially naked female body does not undermine the dignity of women in any way. Neither does it breach the code of ethics," the Index representatives wrote in their letter addressed to the Council.
"Nude pictures can appear in advertisements only if they relate to a product which is the subject of the advertisement," the Council ruled, having asked the firm to withdraw the end the ad campaign. But the pawn shop refused to obey.
The Nesehnutí group has been gathering distasteful and immoral advertising images that use female body. It has called on people to contact them by the end of August.
The activists are not planning to file any other complaints.
"We will call attention to the inappropriate ads in a different way. We will run happenings or something like that," Pešáková said.
