This is a story about a scrap metal yard, a hot girl in a bikini and the fight over the right to marry those two things together. Stay with us. It’s good.
St George Scrap Metal Yard: Protecting blonde women’s right to be beautiful since 2014.
Earlier this year, a group of noble men from St George Scrap Metal Yard bought this billboard to advertise their business. The business of scrap metal involves paying people money in exchange for your spare pieces of metal. Simple. There are no bikinis directly involved in the collection of the metal and it’s all done by blokes.
Is there a girl in a bikini working at the company? There is not. Do they collect scrap metal from the beach? They do not. In fact, the girl, the bikini and the scrap metal are in no way connected – except on this billboard advertisement.
And as the advertising and marketing industry website Mumbrella reports, this became a problem for the company when someone complained to the Advertising Standards Board (ASB). Their complaint read: “I am offended by this advertisement because it is sexist to include a scantily-clad woman on a billboard advertising a service which has no relation whatsoever to the image used. What in the world does that have to do with scrap metal??? It is sexist, predatory and offensive?”
The complainer further complained that the ad was “heavily photoshopped“.
That’s when things got interesting and a little bit surreal.
In its defence, St George Scrap Metal Yard claimed that such a complaint is “discrimination against blonde beautiful women in general as the commentator suggests that she is a sexual object”.
Discrimination! Against blonde beautiful women! How very dare they infringe this woman’s right to be beautiful! In a bikini no less.
But wait, there’s more. St George continues:
“In regards to the comment of being heavily photo shopped, we also believe this to be a discriminating comment aimed at any beautiful woman who has ever had a half decent photo taken of them. In regards to the model in the billboard wearing a bikini, the scrap yard is less than 1 km from the beach where everyday women walk around in bikini’s. In Australia it is a very common sight to see beautiful blonde women in a bikini.”
Discrimination! Against beautiful women who take good photos! And women in bikinis! And women in bikinis who walk through the scrap metal yard on their way home from a trip to the beach where they were just casually exercising their right to be beautiful! And blonde!
The ABS agreed with the complainer that the image of the blonde bikini babe had “no relevance to the product”. In response – again – those moral defenders of bikini babe hotness at St George responded quite remarkably.
They censored their own ad with stickers.
Well played, brave men of the St George Metal Recovery Movement Against Beautiful Blonde Women’s Discrimination.
Thank you for protecting this sacred right.
Top Comments
I am a small business owner and I have a few questions, If they used a male model with the same text, would there be any complaints? Would it still be considered as using sex to sell and because they used a man is that ok? To use a model in a bikini in advertising, does it require a direct link to wearing a bikini?
I've driven past this billboard, and the image did not really surprise or offend me. I think the image combined with the text certainly was over the line. I'm sure the people at St George knew it was a bit cheeky, and are not too surprised or bothered there was a complaint.