Andrex offends readers with whiffy suggestion in press ads

LONDON – A press ad for Andrex's Moistened toilet paper, which featured the image of the rear of a man and women with the text 'Could you be cleaner?', has racked up 62 complaints that labelled it offensive and demeaning.

The three ads, created by JWT, appeared in The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, the Daily Mail, the London Evening Standard and the Sunday Times.

The ads show a full-page image of a woman and man wearing just their underwear. In one ad, a woman is shown wearing black knickers with a tattoo on her back showing two wilting flowers.

The second ad depicted a woman wearing yellow knickers with a cartoon picture printed on the fabric of a monkey holding its nose on them.

The third ad shows the rear of a man's bottom with boxer shorts emblazoned with the picture of a dragon with a horrified expression on its face.

The complainants, including two that were received by the Telegraph Group and one from the Tyneside Consumer Group, objected that the ads were offensive, inappropriate for display in a newspaper and demeaning to men and women.

The Kimberly-Clark Andrex brand argued that the phrase "Could you be cleaner?" was deliberately posed as a question, rather than a statement, so as not to offend and to encourage consumers to consider new options about their toiletry habits.

Andrex said that it had conducted consumer research that showed that people who tried the product felt cleaner and fresher and it had developed concepts to diffuse the sensitivity in a light-hearted way by using the monkey, roses and dragon.

The Advertising Standards Authority decided that the ad was not in breach of the taste and decency code.

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