Billboard poster for fake grass near M60 found to 'demean and objectify women'

An artificial grass firm has been ordered to take down a billboard poster after the advertising watchdog ruled it demeaned and objectified women. It's the second time Oldham-based Great Grass has been told to remove a poster from a hording near to the M60 motorway in Oldham.

The poster for the Great Grass company, which appeared at the junction of Hollins Road and Manchester Road in Failsworth, featured a woman wearing flesh-coloured underwear and holding a potted plant in front of her crotch, with a headline stating 'no trimming needed!' The text was followed by a winking emoji symbol.

Great Grass was ordered to removal a giant poster at the same location two years ago.

A complainant said the latest billboard ad objectified and sexualised women and was offensive, harmful and irresponsible.

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Great Grass, in response, told the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) that the ad had been on display for several months, claiming they had received 47 positive comments about it and suggesting it had not offended most of the 'hundreds of thousands' of people who had seen it given there had only been one complaint.

The firm said it was wrong to assume that the person featured in the ad was a woman when it could 'equally be a man or a transgender person'.

75Media, which owned the poster site, said it took the ASA's concerns 'very seriously' and would remove the ad immediately if it was found to breach advertising rules.

The ASA said those who saw the ad would interpret the image as featuring a woman, due to her slim waist, curved hips, slim arms and lack of obvious body hair, while the image of the pot plant placed over the groin area and the text would be understood as an allusion both to pruning a plant and to trimming pubic hair.

The ASA said many people would see the ad as a light-hearted reference to the low maintenance properties of artificial grass.

But it added: “We considered, however, that the cropped image of a woman in underwear accompanied by text that alluded to pubic hair had the effect of demeaning and objectifying women by using their genitalia to draw attention to an unrelated product. We considered that the emoji next to the text, which featured a winking face with its tongue out, added to the degrading and mocking tone.

"Because we considered the ad objectified women, we further considered it was likely to cause serious and widespread offence and included a gender stereotype in a way that was likely to cause harm. We concluded that the ad was irresponsible and breached the code."

It ruled that the ad must not appear again, adding: "We told Great Grass to ensure their future ads were socially responsible and did not cause serious or widespread offence, including by featuring a harmful gender stereotype by objectifying women."

The Advertising Standards Authority is the UK's independent regulator of advertising across all media.

In November 2022, Great Grass was told it must take down a 30ft poster that bragged to customers that its turf was 'perfect 365 days a year…Get laid by the best”. The giant ad featured a photo of a woman wearing only a thong, along with the headline “Artificial grarse experts.” On that occasion, the advertising watchdog ruled it 'objectified and stereotyped women as sexual objects'.

A spokesman for Great Grass told the Manchester Evening News in response to the latest ASA ruling: "We find it frustrating that a complaint by just one person means we have to remove the advert. Do the thoughts of hundreds more who found it amusing count for nothing? It just shows the way that the world is going. Pandering to the few not the masses. Woke wins."