The Swedish advertising ombudsman has criticised a company for using the C-word in posters to promote vaginal health supplements, saying the use of the “gross profanity” is offensive to consumers.
The ads, displayed on public transport in Stockholm and Gothenburg, feature the phrase “you can cunt on us” in pink writing.
The company, Elexir Pharma, told the ombudsman in a statement that it took complaints “very seriously”. But, it added, the campaign for Happy Vagina vitamins, which was produced in-house, was intended to “promote important discussions about women’s health in a powerful and conscious way”.
The slogan, it said, was “a conscious choice to challenge and break taboos” around women’s health. It said it was aware the word could “be perceived as strong and offensive, especially in some English-speaking countries”, but argued that it was perceived differently in Sweden.
It said: “In Sweden it is not loaded in the same way as in the UK, for example, and therefore the use of the word in certain contexts may be more accepted here.”
The company also said that in some contexts the word had been reclaimed as a feminist symbol of “strength and resistance to patriarchal norms”.
The advertising ombudsman foundation ruled on Wednesday that the ads used “gross profanity” in a way that was intended to cause offence. This, it said, broke article 1 of the International Chamber of Commerce’s rules for advertising and marketing communications.
In its verdict relating to two of three ads, the ombudsman said: “The board finds that the use of the gross profanity ‘cunt’ in the way it is done in the advertisement can be assumed to offend consumers in general. The fact that the advertisement appears in the public space affects the assessment. The advertisement is therefore offensive and thus contravenes the first paragraph of article 1 of the ICC’s rules.”
A spokesperson for Elexir Pharma told the Guardian that while it understood that the word could be considered offensive in English-speaking countries, “this campaign was aimed at a Swedish audience”.
“Here, the word does not have the same associations,” they said. “The wording was a conscious ‘wordplay’ with the language and aims to highlight the importance of breaking taboos around women’s abdomens and health. Our intention was to use the word in a context, where it highlights women’s strength and their right to their own bodies and health.”
