Nude advertisement not the right tonic for public taste and decency barometer

It's a curious fact that, in Ireland, the sight of a man's bare bottom in a television advertisement elicits fewer complaints than a cutaway shot of a nude woman in a print advertisement.

As a nation, our reluctance to complain extends to advertising, but when we do complain it is usually on the increasingly difficult to predict grounds of taste and decency .

In 1999, the Advertising Standards Authority of Ireland (ASAI) received only 600 complaints, mostly from the public and mostly objecting to advertisements on the grounds of taste and decency.

It was on these grounds that 15 complaints were received last month for the Gordon's Gin print advertisement.

According to Mr Ed McCumiskey, chief executive of the ASAI, that number of complaints was high. The committee will adjudicate on cases where there are only three or four complaints.

In this instance, the committee subsequently upheld the complaints and insisted the advertisement be withdrawn immediately, which it was.

By contrast, the ASAI received only two complaints about the McDonnells's advertisement featuring the naked man and they will not be going forwards for consideration by the committee.

In the same month a press advertisement for iTouch, a new WAP content provider, which featured a body builder wearing only the briefest briefs, was withdrawn by this newspaper because of an unprecedented number of direct complaints from members of the public. Business & Finance magazine ran with the advert but the art work was covered over so that the offending briefs were hidden by a much larger, less racy pair.

Meanwhile, the back of several of Dublin Bus's double-deckers is covered with an image of a nude woman covered only in strawberries to advertise HB's Solero ice-cream.

The public's taste and decency barometer is clearly difficult to predict. Commenting on the relatively low level of complaints, Mr Steve Shanahan, the new chief executive of The Institute of Advertising Practitioners in Ireland (IAPI), said: "We're growing up as a country. People are more concerned with real issues. There seems to be a broader attitude towards issues relating to sex, and that is reflected in the public's attitude to things like nudity."

He was a "bit surprised" by the reaction to the Gordon's advertisement and complimented the client, in this case Edward Dillon & Co the brand's distributor, for its bravery in going with the advertisement.

Trevor Beattie, one of Britain's top creatives, who created controversial and provocative work for Pretty Polly and Wonderbra, including the famous "Hello Boys" campaign, takes a different approach to nudity in advertising. "A nude woman in an advertisement for gin is ridiculous, simply because it's three steps removed from the product. It's just a way of illustrating a tired old saying that's been used before in advertising anyway."

Mr John Pearson, chief executive designate of Edward Dillon & Co, defended the advertisement saying it "contains no sexual innuendo of any kind. The image is simply a visual foil by which two things, in this case parts of the body, that are different in kind and function can be clearly identified and distinguished". The sheer good humour and easily identifiable slice of life approach in the British-generated Supernoodle advertisement probably plays some part in softening the response to it. "Humour obviously mitigates to a certain extent in some circumstances," said Mr McCumisky of ASAI, "but it's not a balm for everything".

What is more surprising in marketing terms is the way the Supernoodle advertisements break the traditional rules by treating the product so irreverently. In other executions in the same campaign, two young men literally throw the noodles around the kitchen, and in the "naked" advertisement the girl picks up a noodle with her fingers, points it disparagingly at her boyfriend and says "cover yourself up".

Remarking on the bad old days when car advertising regularly featured scantily clad women draped over bonnets, Mr Beattie, with his trademark laconic humour, said: "A naked women in a car advertisement is great, but only if the woman is being given away as part of a branded offer or something; otherwise why would you do it? What's the point? It's got no relevance."