A Facebook-led campaign has resulted in the defacement of cosmetic surgery adverts on the London Underground.
A poster featuring a smiling breast enlargement patient next to the quotation “going from a 34B to a 34D was the best decision I ever made!” has been vandalised by members of a Facebook group ¬– entitled “Somewhat strident but who cares” - that encourages its members to voice their distaste at “sexist” and “skewed” portrayals of women in the media.
While vandalism is taking it too far, the point is an interesting one. How responsible should marketers be? As long as the client is pleased and the business is brought in, there are plenty of bodies out there whose job it is to ensure the ethical soundness of a campaign. Does that make it OK to just see what you can get away with?
In this case the advert isn’t blatant. It simply shows a woman who is happy with her breast enlargement; nowhere does it say anything along the lines of “you are inadequate if you have a smaller chest.” It provokes particular clamour because it tiptoes around female insecurities, while being far away enough from them to irk those who resent the shrillness inherent in accusations of sexism.
Any advert for cosmetic surgery is going to be controversial. In theory people should be strong-minded enough not to be pressured into doing something potentially harmful that they wouldn’t otherwise do, but we know from the legislation surrounding cigarette, alcohol and junk food advertising that this isn’t always the case. There is a time and place for certain kinds of advert and, in this instance, perhaps the London Underground is not one of them.
In 2007 complaints against another advert for cosmetic surgery on the tube were upheld on the grounds that it was misleading to make breast enhancement surgery seem “easy”. The Harley Medical Group was banned from repeating the ad in the same format.
Quite apart from moral concerns, if marketers do not act responsibly then past experience shows that someone else will do it for them.
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