Store’s breast-grabbing Santa office party ad slammed by Ad Standards Board

This was a contender for ad of the year otherwise. So bad its good

More of the same old PC panic and the watchdogs of the self imposed moral vigilantes.

The scenario concept is very poor, the artwork rudimentary, and at least one of the characters is tasteless, but the man in the Santa hat is quite obviously not groping the breasts of the woman close to him, and doesn’t even appear to be doing so despite the highly unlikely positioning of his fingers.
Apart from being tasteless and poorly conceived, the ad is lame and forgettable.

Gosh, now where would we be without a middle class white male to pop in and tell us how the world has become a dark and terrible place for anyone who wants to be an asshole just like back in the 70s.

You’re doing God’s work Dick, never let your light go out you crazy snowflake.

PC gone crazy. The ad is neither tasteful nor tasteless.
It certainly is not worthy of comment

Darling Edna,
The man dressed as Santa is clearly not fondling or touching the breast of the woman (who might be his wife) and the man in the mankini shows no genitalia and has only marginally less coverage than had he been wearing boardshorts.
So, please tell us what offends you so much in this ad.
Love,
Norm

I couldn’t care less about the ad, Norm. What I do care about is shitty old middle class white males such as yourself that litter this industry and spend their time pissing and moaning that they can’t run PR companies like they’re in an episode of Mad Men.

While I’m sure you personally are a bastion of tolerance, equality and restraint, there’s a vast number of assholes who are lazy, exploitative bastards who create a sordid undercurrent of misogyny that everyone knows about.

Also, if you can’t tell that that advert is intended to be lazy, sexist bullshit by calling on a number of well known cultural tropes, I suggest you send your PR qualifications back to whichever cereal manufacturer made the box you cut them out from.

She “might be his wife” ! Good grief. I know it’s traditional for blokes still living in the seventies to stretch plausible deniability to its limits, to weasel out of accoutability but when even the advertising standards board draws a line, just admit it. The ad doesn’t pass. And if you’re reading Mumbrella, you oughtn’t be pretending that suggestive images in ads are accidental; that it “just happens” to look as if he’s gone for the grope, as if there’s no point hiring advertising professionals because it’s all a bit haphazard anyway and they don’t actually carefully construct the images they publish.

Thank you, Dame Edna. Well said.

So if it’s printed and delivered, what recourse is there for the ASB?

The lecherous santa with the crowd of cucks egging him on is creepy. Not sure what nigel-no-friends is doing in the background fiddling with his conifer.
Personally don’t have a problem with the bloke in the mankini, he looks a friendly chap – but I think that it technically comprises of rudolph being compromised rather than santa.

The guy is not groping the womans breasts. He is holding a beer glass.

Darling Norm,

Firstly, I’ll choose not to focus my energies on your contrived greeting to Edna, I would be wasting my time as I’m sure your 2nd hand Weber BBQ & Tommy Bahama Shirt personality would not see anything wrong with this.

That Santa is groping, if you got your head out of the Herald Sun for a second and really looked at the scene in this ad, you might be able to see this.

But as I’m sure you think, ‘Boys Will Be Boys’ right?

The fact that as a grown man, you have decided to use your ADSL2+ internet connection to defend this ad, shows you really need to adjust the focus of your daily energies. Maybe you can go down to Beaurepaires and kick some tyres?

Best,

Lachlan