The French don't blink at the topless look, but an ad campaign for thong underwear geared toward young people proved too risque even here.
"Mon Dieu! Lookidat, Maurice!"
"Oooh! Much too risquÚ for the likes o' me, Henri!" |
The campaign for Sloggi thongs drew fire from the humorless consumers and hacks wanting their names in the papers elected officials who said posters displayed around the country were degrading to women.
"Florette, those underwear are degrading! Take them off now!"
"Oooh! Henri! You silver-tongued devil, you!" |
"Women are sick of being treated like merchandise," said lawmaker Segolene Royal, who was family affairs minister in the previous Socialist government. "And we're fed up with children™ being confronted with images that hit them and shock them in the middle of the street."
| "Ah, the poor children™! Bombarded with pictures of underwear and titties! Something must be done!" |
The company began taking down the posters on Wednesday and all were gone by Thursday night. However, Marie-Laure Nordmann, spokeswoman for the Swiss-based Triumph International, which owns Sloggi, said the company did not cede to the complaints. Rather, she said, the week-long publicity campaign was simply over.
"Florette! I just had an anticlimax!"
"Poor Henri! Come back to bed, dear!" |
One poster showed a rear view of two young women, wearing only the thongs and red boxing gloves, facing off against a man in skin-tight skivvies. Another showed three women, dressed in Sloggi thongs, dancing like strippers around a pole.
| Whoopdee doo. That's it? I guess you hadda be there... |
"That women are nude poses no problem for us in France," said Joseph Besnainou, director general of the Publicity Verification Office. Not everyone agrees with Sloggi's detractors, according to Nordmann, the Triumph International spokeswoman. "There are women of a certain age who called us saying they were thrilled because they had worn Sloggis for 25 years and now they can offer them to their grandchildren," she told France-2 television.
However, in Switzerland, Sloggi posters were ripped and graffiti scrawled across them during the spring and summer ad campaign. Terre des Femmes, a women's rights group, filed a complaint with the Swiss advertising standards agency about the ads.
| I think I'll go lie down for the rest of the afternoon. This teapot is entirely too tempestuous... |
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