They say that in life, timing is everything – and if that’s truly the case then the wisdom behind the ASA’s decision to publish a bizarre, grovelling non-apology regarding its decision to ban FKA Twigs’ now-infamous Calvin Klein poster needs to be seriously questioned.
Inexplicably coming just two days before International Women’s Day, the ASA’s statement was naturally heavily scrutinised, with the organisation facing criticism from FKA Twigs and much of the online community, following a perceived case of blatant ‘double standards’.
While the ASA originally banned the ad because it ‘sexually objectified’ singer-songwriter FKA Twigs, the regulator then decided (after much furore) that wasn’t the case at all. It didn’t overturn the ban, instead changing the wording and reasoning behind it.
The revised ruling said that while the ad presented FKA Twigs as “confident and in control” and not, therefore, as a “stereotypical sexual object”, it was still “overtly sexual” and not suitable for use on an untargeted poster.
So has the ASA wet the bed here? It’s hard to imagine such an abrupt about-face being made without the hefty vitriol that the regulator has fielded over the past few weeks.
Carefully considered decision or knee-jerk reaction?
Was the ASA’s decision to overturn the guidance behind its decision really based out of a genuine desire to set things right?
Or was it simply a knee-jerk reaction to the online backlash it received after making the frankly perplexing decision? A decision that was particularly confusing when viewed alongside the strikingly-similar ad featuring Kendall Jenner, which was allowed to run as it was only “mildly sexual”.
Leading the protests was FKA Twigs herself (which no doubt had something to do with the ASA’s faltering stance), who had a significant creative input on the final work and was far from being objectified.
The singer songwriter angrily called out the regulator on her Instagram page, writing: “I do not see the ‘stereotypical sexual object’ that they have labelled me. I see a beautiful, strong woman of colour whose incredible body has overcome more pain than you can imagine.”
“In light of reviewing other campaigns, past and current of this nature, I can’t help but feel there are some double standards here.”
Joan managing director Tom Ghiden points out that the ASA’s flip-flopping will only make life harder for it in the long-run.
“It isn’t often that the ASA changes its mind on a ruling, so its credibility still stands,” he said.
“However, the public uproar when the ad was initially banned means that its future decisions will be highly scrutinised. The ASA said its change in decision was made ‘in the context of the significant strength of public feeling, including views expressed by FKA Twigs’.
“It will be interesting to see if public opinion plays a role in the ASA’s decision-making in the future.”
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Blatant double-standards?
What makes this particularly unpalatable is that it is very difficult to explain the difference between the banned FKA Twigs poster and the subsequent soft-porn-esque Jeremy Allen White TV ad.
The ad shows the star of the ‘Iron Claw’ and ‘The Bear’ star stripping down to an impossibly tiny pair tight white boxers (leaving very little to the imagination), before frolicking a New York rooftop – which includes doing chin-ups with his ‘package’ a mere yard from the camera lens.
But the key question remains – in what way is this ad different to FKA Twigs’ poster? Surely as a series of moving images, it is many ways more explicit – and more worryingly, does it imply a subconscious indifference to male nudity, while still feeling the need to censor female bodies?
We cannot have one without the other, as Ghiden explains: “The painful irony of the FKA twigs campaign was the fact it was banned by the ASA almost the same time the Jeremy Allen White campaign launched, which did not receive the same scrutiny. ”
“The clear level of hypocrisy – from both consumers and the regulator – put brands in a grey area, and the ASA’s U-turn on the campaign hasn’t helped to clear things up.”
He continued: “The ASA standing firm in its original decision shows how there are blatant double standards between men and women in advertising, which will likely have an impact on similar marketing campaigns moving forward.”
For its part – the ASA did reveal that it didn’t receive any actionable complaints against the Jeremy Allen White ad. So what does this mean?
For some reason, at both regulatory and consumer level, one ad has been deemed acceptable whilst the other has not. Aptly coinciding with International Women’s Day, this whole unsavoury saga suggests that as advanced as we feel society may have become – we truly do have a long way to go before we reach genuine parity.
