Umeåföretag convicted of sexist advertising – Västerbottens-kuriren (the Courier)

Umeå Umeåföretagets ad was sexist. It shows up a schabloniserande image including a scantily clad woman. Now folds the ad of Reklamombudsmannen.

VK have previously told you about juriststudenten Amanda Eklund from Umeå reacted when she in the fall received a flyer from online toy Lekia in their mailbox.

the Flyer depicted two people; a fully clothed boy in the piratkostym and a stripped, adult woman in short skirt, high-heeled shoes and garters.

did me especially upset when I saw the flyer was the fact that Lekia is essentially a toy store for children here in Umeå, ” says Amanda Eklund.

Amanda Eklund thought that it sent the wrong signals to the children where the boy was shown as a tough pirate while the woman was described as an object.

There is not any legislation banning sexist or discriminatory advertising in Sweden. However, a notification shall be made to the Reklamombudsmannen and there sent Amanda Eklund a notification.

Now Reklamombudsmannen come to the conclusion that the ad, which is also published in other situations, was sexist.

the Advertiser themselves said that the ad is not targeted to children, then they focused on fancy-dress costumes and 75 per cent of the turnover of these are adults. Students are their main clientele when it comes to fancy dress.

private investigation around the ad, which the advertiser made, shall also have surprised customers. The Lekia wanted to show with their ad was that they had fancy dress for both adults and children.

– We had not thought of that it could be seen as sexist, they say in their response to the Reklamombudsmannen.

Reklamombudsmannen have tried the ad according to the International Chamber of commerce rules for advertising and commercial communications, among other things, that advertising should not be discriminatory in terms of sex. It may be that advertising portrays women or men as pure sex objects, gives a stereotypical image of the könsröllerna or something else, disparaging, the way is clear sex discrimination.

The chamber tried the ad is mean that the woman is not portrayed as a sex object. However, they think that the image is schabloniserande then the boy is dressed as a pirate with a sword in hand and woman in a scantily clad angel.

– It provides a sterotyp picture of gender roles in a way that is degrading for both men/boys and women/girls, writes the board in its decision.

the Decision was unanimous.

the Problem there are no consequences for the person who is convicted of Reklamombudsmannen, said Amanda Eklund when she made her application.

She still hoped that a precipitate would produce results.

– It can be in the best of cases, give bad publicity for the company, and that they might think about it more in the future on how they present their advertising.