ASA Is At It Again

The ASA (advertising standard authority) is having a field day or rather, a field week. Promgirl News recently reported the ban on Marc Jacobs new perfume ad for Oh Lola!, featuring his new favorite model, Dakota Fanning. The Oh Lola! ad was banned for its possible sexual content. This came as a bit of a surprise to everyone as Dakota Fanning is a sweet, young actress who is known more for her innocent, adolescent roles as a doe-eyed little girl. Well, apparently someone took her innocent look as shying too close to seductiveness, and adding the position of the actual promoted product, the perfume bottle, well that was simply too much for the ASA to handle.

A mere few days later and the ASA are at it again. This time, instead of focusing on a possible over sexualized ad or an ad referring and/or simulating drug use, the ASA has refused to turn its cheek to a company called Drop Dead. At first glance, the assumption of what the ASA is banning would take you to the company’s name; however the ban is due to the models appearance in the new ad for Drop Dead, not their implicit name. Drop Dead’s new ad features a model dressed in a bikini but the real issue is the model’s body. The girl in the ad is quite skinny, enough so that the ASA has deemed Drop Dead “socially irresponsible.” The ASA feels this ad, nor any other, should feature a girl who is visibly underweight. The ASA’s formal message concerning the issue at hand is as follows; “In the bikini images her hip, rib and collar bones were highly visible. We also noted that in the bikini and denim shorts images, hollows in her thighs were noticeable and she had prominent thigh bones. We considered that in combination with the stretched out pose and heavy eye makeup, the model looked underweight in the pictures.”

This is not a vendetta against skinny people for the ASA. Sure some of their bans are slightly ridiculous, but this ban comes down to the fact that the girl in the ad does not appear healthy in weight. Also, young girls are very impressionable and if they see this girl they may want to achieve the same look to a degree which could potentially cause harm, as having this look implies poor health and has been reported as appearing anorexic.

Too bad Marc and Drop Dead for the bans, but congrats to YSL for finally creating an appropriate Opium perfume ad that the ASA doesn’t want to touch!