Clothing outfit courts controversy with ads

Clothing company World Design & Trade is courting controversy with an advertising campaign showing a naked woman tied to a chair with items of clothing from its Full Circle menswear range.

The bondage-style campaign, created by Beeching Dowell Stubbs, is scheduled to run in a number of men’s magazines next month. Postcards will also be distributed in fashionable bars. The ads are considered too shocking for outdoor media.

In one execution the model is bound to a chair with a rolled-up shirt tied round her legs, and her arms are tied behind her back. Ads carry the strapline “slightly twisted”.

A spokeswoman for Beeching Dowell Stubbs admits the campaign aims to be controversial. She says: “We were briefed by the client to be highly controversial. We expect there to be some criticism and a few complaints.”

Ads have been booked in the October edition of EMAP’s FHM and the next edition of FHM Collection. Other titles on the roster include Wagadon’s Arena Homme Plus and Deluxe.

David Pugh, chief executive of outdoor company Mills & Allen, says the ads are degrading to women. “We have to take a view on taste and decency and something that is acceptable on the pages of men’s magazines is not necessarily acceptable for outdoor,” he adds.

The Committee of Advertising Practice recently introduced sanctions to prevent outdoor com- panies running “offensive or irresponsible” posters.

An ad for Nintendo featuring a partially clothed woman tied to a bed was banned by the Adver- tising Standards Authority after it appeared in men’s title Loaded earlier this year.