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A former international swimsuit model is calling for a boycott of companies that use scantily-clad women to sell their products.
Rachael Wynn Barton del Mundo returned to New Zealand recently after more than a decade working as a "body" model in the United States, Australia and Asia.
She is horrified by the number of local businesses using near-naked women to advertise everything from beer to flavoured milk, cellphones and hamburgers.
A commercial for Primo flavoured milk, in which young, bikini-clad women bounce around on inflatable rubber balls, and Burger King promotions featuring three similarly garbed, and bouncing, females on horseback - recently described by a commentator as one of this century's most blatant cases of sex being used to sell - were particularly offensive, said 36-year-old del Mundo.
"There just seems to be a trend in advertising that is creeping back into society... a sort of insidious sexism that demeans women."
The advertising agency which created the Burger King campaign concedes del Mundo isn't the only one to have taken issue with the ads. Steve McCabe, account manager at Young & Rubicam, said there had been other complaints - enough to make the company rethink future campaigns.
The Burger King "girls" had been a "bit of fun", They were aimed at the client's target market - "lads".
"They weren't meant to be taken too seriously," he said. "There's been such a lot of over-the-top PC-ness lately... they were just a bit of tongue-in-cheek."
Del Mundo cited a Tui beer advertisement where skimpily-clad women frolic in a river, as another example. None of them would be accepted, "let alone tolerated" in America, where an outcry over similar advertisements - the Hooter and Budweiser "girls" - several years ago resulted in the introduction of strict advertising standards.
"Even when I was in Australia, I didn't see anything as offensive. I realise there's a backlash against being too politically correct - New Zealanders have a thing about not being able to say what they like, which is great - but it's being taken too far."
The widespread acceptance of "laddish" marketing was also a kick in the teeth for feminism: "I don't want people to think I'm a prude or a killjoy because I'm not. It's not the flesh I'm offended by, but the way these ads demean women.
"You can be sexy without denigrating women... There's nothing wrong with showing a bit of skin. It just needs to be done in the right context. These ads are making fun of women, and in a weird way that is quite bizarre."
She was concerned about the effect the ads were having on youngsters.
"I've got a 12-year-old-son. I don't want him seeing this sort of thing and accepting it as being all right."
She now turned the television off when the advertisements were screened, and the family no longer ate at Burger King.
Mike Lee, lecturer in consumer behaviour at the University of Auckland Business School Marketing department, believes advertising's move towards soft porn is a reaction to the political correctness of the past decade. "It's done on purpose by the marketers to appeal to a segment of males who have had enough of [that] climate. These are the men who are beginning to revolt against what they perceive as society's feminisation of masculinity. Think Marc Ellis and Matthew Ridge."
Sex sells, Lee says, because it attracts attention, causes positive feelings, and imbues a "sexiness" to the brand. "So it is unlikely that sex will ever go away in marketing. The important thing is that the product should lend itself to sex appeal. ... like cosmetics, perfumes, and lingerie ... "
DB Breweries, which makes Tui, Fonterra, which produces Primo, and Burger King were all unavailable for comment.
Complaints to the Advertising Standards Complaints Board:
* Motorola: The company's advertisements for a new cellphone featured a topless woman with her breasts only partly covered.
* The Mill Liquor Save: Billboards showed a scantily-clad woman alongside bottles of beer shaped like rugby balls and labelled "beer balls".
* Elle Macpherson lingerie: Depicted a semi-clad woman touching herself near the panty line, viewed through an almost closed door.
* Jim Beam / X-Air Games: A competition at the X-Air Games in Wellington using contestants in branded bikinis to promote Jim Beam.
* Heaven Bar, Whangarei: An ad outside showed a woman's breasts in a bikini with nipples clearly visible, and the caption "$2 cup and jug specials".
