An artificial grass company which was forced to take down an 'inappropriate' billboard after complaints were made have shot back at the 'offended' with another mocking poster. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) - the UK's independent regulator of advertising across all media - ordered Great Grass MCR Ltd to remove their billboard in November last year after ruling that it 'objectified and stereotyped women as sexual objects'.
The poster which was advertised by the Oldham based business sat on a busy junction in Hollinwood featured a statement which said the company were 'Artificial Grarse Experts', the Manchester Evening News reports. Underneath the text, was an image of a woman wearing just a thong with a bold message that said: "Perfect 365 days a year...Get laid by the best."
The ASA opened up an investigation which was fuelled by complaints and concluded the advertisement was 'irresponsible and likely to cause serious offence'. At the time, the local company responded to the backlash by saying the poster was a ‘bit of light-hearted fun and not intended to offend anyone’.
The Oldham company have now replaced their advertisement with a new billboard which features a sarcastic apology to the small group of people who complained about their message. Their new headline states: ‘Apologies to the offended 4’ along with the message: “You found it offensive, we all found it funny".
The poster features an angry face emoji followed by the number four alongside a laughing face emoji next to 40,000,000. The ad continued: “Just because you’re offended, doesn’t mean you’re right.
The defiant billboard ended with a promotional offer for people who quote 'not offended' to receive 10% off their next order. Great Grass MCR Ltd claimed that the taken down poster had been up for months before anyone complained about it and the overall response from it had been great for business.
Owner Mike Allen said: “It had been up for three months before it received three complaints. We’ve had that billboard spot for five years and no one has ever seen it but now that people have complained, everyone’s seen it.
“It was never meant to be offensive and we’ve had thousands of comments telling us they found it funny. It's been shared around the world and featured in loads of newspapers."
The light hearted business owner said he had originally considered featuring a topless man in the new advert instead but in the end decided to retaliate to the complaints instead. Mike said the new poster has received a great response and he plans to keep the flippant comments coming.
He shot back that in this day and age 'there's a million and one other things that we should all be worrying about instead' but he added: "In the end, it’s had a positive effect on us and it’s worked out in our favour. We’ve turned it on its head and it’s been the best thing to happen to us.
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