Sex, A Businessman Skewered by a Stiletto Heel, and a Pool of Blood. What More Do You Want In a Story About Advertising? Well, How About The Euro Graphically Doing “It” to the Dollar?

Philip Stone December 2, 2004

The print ad was plain, stark and simple. A giant stiletto heel skewering a businessman in his stomach as his blood poured on the floor. Was this an advertisement for a new porn internet site? No! Was it an ad for a new X-rated movie? No! Well it certainly could not have been an ad produced by the UK Newspaper Marketing Agency to promote newspapers as an attractive advertising medium, could it? Well, as a matter of fact …

Knowing how the UK media is split between the so-called quality press and the so-called popular press, one would assume this was another example of the popular tabloids going one-step too far.  And you would be wrong. This ad ran in the “cream” of the UK quality newspapers -- The Times, The Guardian, The Observer, The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Mail, the Independent and The Daily Express. Not only that, but when 81 readers objected to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) those newspapers, with the exception of the Daily Mail and the Independent, insisted the ad was not sexist and it did not trivialize violence against men. Only the Daily Mail said that on second thoughts the ad was objectionable and it would not run it again.

Well, now none of them get to run it again. The ASA has ruled the advertisement was seriously offensive, and that it trivialized violence, and would cause “widespread and serious offense to readers.”  

The marketing agency had told the ASA the ad was aimed at fashion brands. Much of that advertising had gone to magazines, and newspapers wanted a slice of that pie back. They thought a startling original pictorial would get the fashion industry’s attention. “The image did not exceed the standards acceptable in the fashion industry,” the agency said.  Fine, but did none of those newspapers have managers who know what is acceptable to their readers?

Meanwhile, with the Euro rising to new highs almost daily against the dollar graphic artists are falling over themselves trying to illustrate the story. Which brings to mind the posters banned in Russia two months ago which probably told the story as accurately and simply as one could. Trouble was that showing the € in the throes of lovemaking with the $ was considered immoral by Russian authorities and 1,000 posters had to be torn down overnight all around Moscow.

The posters were promoting a finance magazine. The publisher said, “I thought the currencies were dancing on our poster, but after hearing from the authorities I saw that, yes, maybe, this is a love scene.”

The relationship between the dollar and the euro today may not be love, but it certainly is better than being skewered in the stomach.