Watchdog bans car cleavage poster

The advert was for the UlsterTrader.com website

A Northern Ireland car sales website has had a billboard campaign banned by an advertising watchdog for objectifying and degrading women.

The Advertising Standards Authority said it has received 44 complaints about an advert for UlsterTrader.com.

The poster features an image of the cleavage of a woman wearing a white bra with the strapline: "Nice headlamps. What do you look for in a car?"

UlsterTrader.com said its brand values included the "use of humour and fun".

It said the ad, which ran in 20 high-profile and high-traffic locations in Northern Ireland, used "light-hearted slang" about "what people of both sexes would regard as attractive attributes".

The ASA said the poster "caused serious offence to some readers and was likely to cause widespread offence".

"We considered that the image of the woman's cleavage coupled with the strapline 'Nice Headlamps. What do you look for in a car?' was likely to be seen to objectify and degrade women by linking attributes of a woman, her cleavage, to attributes of a car, the headlamps, in a way that would be seen to imply a woman, like a car, was to be selected for those attributes," the watchdog said.