Diesel, the streetwear manufacturer, has been carpeted by
advertising watchdogs over a campaign featuring nuns and a statue of the
Virgin Mary wearing denim.
Adding its weight to the 83 complaints made against the poster and press
campaign, the Advertising Standards Authority this week branded it
offensive and unacceptable and has warned the company not to repeat the
tactic.
The row was provoked by a series of ads produced by Lowe Howard-Spink
which led to claims that they parodied violent murders and used
religious imagery in a deeply offensive way.
One execution showed a man wearing jeans who appeared to be dismembering
corpses and claimed: ’Our workwear suits labourers, clubbers, murderers
or anyone else who needs lots of odd-shaped pockets.’
Another featured pictures of women dressed as nuns from the waist up and
holding rosaries but wearing jeans. Behind them was a statue of the
Virgin Mary also wearing jeans. One poster carried the words ’superior
denim’.
Diesel claimed the ads, featuring tongue-in-cheek visual puns, were not
intended to be taken seriously and that its 18- to 25-year-old target
market would not find them offensive. It denied the campaign attacked or
belittled Christianity and said that ads featuring the Virgin Mary had
not appeared in London, Belfast or Dublin.
Meanwhile, Lee, the jeans manufacturer, was cleared of being offensive
with a poster for its Carpenter range. The poster, by Grey, showed a
jeans-clad man and woman standing together with limbs entwined. A long
carpenter’s ruler stuck out of a pocket in the woman’s jeans and the
poster carried the line: ’You never know when you might need a
ruler.’
The ASA also absolved Start-Rite, the children’s shoe manufacturer, of
charges that an ad featuring the comedian, Julian Clary, carried sexual
overtones. The ASA said the ad - which showed a weeping Clary holding a
sandal to his cheek - would not cause offence.
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