Beer ad dropped for revealing women in bikini as drink finishes

Melbourne, Jul 8 (ANI): A beer ad that allowed children to undress bikini-clad women has been pulled down from cyberspace by the advertising standards watchdog.

The Skinny Blonde promotion encouraged users to click on photographs of women, encased in a six-pack, and expose their breasts by increasing the temperature on a digital thermometer.

The online advertisement came only weeks after the beer hit liquor shelves last month, sending health and women's groups into a flurry of gripes with its depiction of a young blonde girl whose bikini disappears as the bottle empties.

The Advertising Standards Board received numerous complaints about the online ad, which was promptly pulled by the company.

In addition to being labelled "outrageously tasteless", many complained the promotion was pornographic.

In its ruling, the Advertising Standards Board found the ad failed to restrict children from viewing the content, despite the site requesting users to declare they were over 18 before allowing access to the racy material.

The board also considered the ability to remove the women's tops was sexualised and in breach of the Advertiser Code of Ethics for failing to treat sex, sexuality and nudity with sensitivity to the relevant audience.

It said the promotion further breached the code for depicting women as commodities and objectifying them to a point that amounted to discrimination.

A spokesman for Skinny Blonde defended the promotion, saying that other alcohol companies had created similar adult campaigns without rebuke.

"The website is clearly a humorous, cheeky and light-hearted portrayal of the essence of the Skinny Blonde brand," the Herald Sun quoted the spokesman as saying.

"The website is not out of sync with community standards, which accepts the attire worn to beaches by females in Australia and also accepts topless sunbathing and the like as matter of everyday occurrence," he said.he company further argued that only those who actively sought it out would have accessed the promotion.

"The nature of websites are that they may only be viewed voluntarily," the spokesman added. (ANI)