The ASA was wrong to ban this cancer charity's billboards

In a move I’m not sure has really involved reading the room, the Advertising Standards Authority has banned a poster from the charity GIRLvsCANCER.  The poster uses (probably) the world's most famous profanity (albeit written as “f*cks”), alongside a nude close-up of women who have experienced cancer. 

Design studio Bartle Bogle Hegarty created the poster, which is part of a wider campaign looking at sex, intimacy, and pleasure for people who are living with or have lived with cancer, and I think it’s one of the best poster designs we’ve seen in a while. From October last year, the poster ran in Finsbury Park, Hackney, and Tower Gateway, and two complainants saw the poster that month. 

Defending, GIRLvsCANCER argued that the poster represented the real-life experiences of women who’ve lived with cancer. While it accepted that the poster may have made people feel uncomfortable, it disagreed that it would likely cause serious or widespread offence. 

It explained that the imagery was crafted so that the breasts of the models were covered, and that only their torso were visible. They said that the language and imagery were relevant to the experiences of women with cancer, were used with good reason, and that the use of the swear word was necessary for the message and creative execution.

The media owner, Build Hollywood, said that the ad was removed after it was made aware of the complaint. However, they said that the campaign warranted conversation due to the important nature of the topic – the poster wasn’t meant to cause offence, but to educate. 

However, the ASA said that the use of the asterisk in the swear word did not obscure the reference, even though the word “fucks” wasn’t used outright. And it said that viewers were likely to see the ad as depicting sexual behaviour due to both the language and imagery. 

While it accepted GIRLvsCANCER’s argument that they chose the language and imagery carefully, they said that the word “fuck” shouldn’t be alluded to in advertising due to its propensity to offend. They decided that the advert was likely to cause serious and widespread offence, and was inappropriate for display in an untargeted medium where children may see it. 

The poster was part of a wider campaign which also included three films featuring women who’ve lived with cancer, addressing sex and intimacy. Each film ends with the same tagline as the one featured on the poster. Other posters we’ve enjoyed recently include Marvel’s new sign language poster – though it does have an error – and this retro poster for Zendaya’s latest movie.