Adidas sports bra ads showing women’s bare breasts banned in UK

Adidas’ sports bra advertisements displaying women’s breasts have been banned due to their ‘explicit nudity’ and potential for ‘widespread offence.’

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) in the United Kingdom received 24 complaints stating that the ads objectified and sexualized women and were unsuitable for youngsters.

In February, Adidas launched an ad campaign that included social media postings and posters that included photos of breasts of various skin colours, shapes, and sizes – some with the nipples blurred out – to show the diversity of breasts and promote the 72 sizes in their sports bra range.

The posters featured 62 women’s naked breasts and the caption read, “The reasons we didn’t make just one new sports bra.”

However, some people were offended by the campaign, claiming that the commercials’ use of nudity was “gratuitous,” reducing women to mere body parts, and that “they were hurtful and unpleasant.”

In response, Adidas said, it believed that the images in the ads were “intended to reflect and celebrate different shapes and sizes, illustrate diversity and demonstrate why tailored support bras were important.”

Cropped photographs were utilised to protect the identities of the models who were part of the campaign and whose permission had been requested in the first place.

“Although we did not consider that the way the women were portrayed was sexually explicit or objectified them,” the ASA “we considered that the depiction of naked breasts was likely to be seen as explicit nudity.”

“We noted the breasts were the main focus in the ads, and there was less emphasis on the bras themselves, which were only referred to in the accompanying text.”

“The ads must not appear again in the forms complained of,” the ASA said, “We told Adidas UK Ltd to ensure their ads did not cause offence and were targeted responsibly.”