A complaint against a poster promoting the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius as the ‘G-Spot of Europe’ has been rejected by the advertising watchdog.
The advert featured an image of a woman visible from the upper part of her face.
The woman in the ad seen in August was lying on material printed with a map of Europe, with her hair splayed out behind her head.
Her eyes were closed and she had one arm raised above her head, gripping the material in her hand at the point on the map where Vilnius was located.
The poster for Go Vilnius, a development agency for Vilnius, drew a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority that it was “overtly sexual”.
The complainant believed the image of the woman was unrelated to the product and challenged whether the ad was offensive.
Go Vilnius argued that the advert took a “playful approach” which aimed to be attention-grabbing to introduce consumers to Vilnius as a tourist destination, a place that may not have previously been on their radar.
The organisation denied that the ad was overtly sexual and that the medium was appropriate for the ad, which was targeted at a millennial audience.
It pointed out that only one complaint had been received about the ad, and therefore did not consider that widespread offence had been caused.
Rejecting the complaint, the ASA said it considered the ad as “risqué and sexually suggestive in tone,” due to the reference to ‘Vilnius the G-Spot of Europe’, and the image of the woman gripping the map with her eyes closed.
“However, we considered the ad portrayed that suggestiveness in a light-hearted and humorous way, for example through the statement ‘Nobody knows where it is, but when they find it – it’s amazing’, and because the woman appeared in a surreal and unrealistic scenario, indicating the location of Vilnius on the map of Europe,” the ASA added.
“We considered the ad did not contain anything which pointed to an exploitative or degrading scenario or tone.
“While we acknowledged that some might find the ad distasteful, we considered, for the above reasons, the ad did not objectify the female character and we concluded it was unlikely to cause serious or widespread offence.”