To think this window display is inappropriate?

[SamineShaw]

I'm not a prude but really?

I knew this would be Paperchase before I even opened the thread! They want to be known for their "risqué" advertising although heaven knows why - they did a back to school campaign playing on using "Class A" drugs. I don't see what these kinds of messages have to do with pretty stationery if I'm honest...

Meh. Doesn't bother me.

What does bother me (even though I'm definitely not a prude) is a sex/hook up site being advertised on a poster in the street I walk down to work.

It's pretty full on and a lot of tourists walk past it with kids etc.

We have boring products - let's try and sex them up...

Said the boring marketing office at paper chase

I am a prude and that wouldn't bother me. In the unlikely event that my DCs had asked about it I'd have made it into a joke by moving to lick their faces and watched them wriggle away screaming. Job done.
It's a case of pick your battles these days.
I found asking to see the manager and taking them to the display and asking them to explain it to you and say why they think it's ok to have it there in view of so many kids is effective. But I doubt you'd get far with this as it's quite innocuous really.

I had a discussion with the Village Hotel chain as they have a poster saying 'Burger me this Friday!' with a woman whispering into a man's ear. 😳 It was at the top of the stairs leading to the swimming pool where a lot of children have swimming lessons.
It disappeared for a couple of months and is now back.

Agree with grumpypuss and others.
Tacky and desperate. Cringe.

And another thing - looks like it plays on the fact that a lot of young kids are accessing inappropriate content these days.

WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!!

It's fine. It's not in a breach of advertising standards, it's not overtly lewd, it's not particularly out there. Did you complain to every major book chain in the country when they were selling '50 Shades of Grey' and all the window displays were handcuffs and whips and masks? Do you cover your child's eyes if you have to walk past the M&S lingerie department?

You are trying to ascribe a far more adult meaning to it than a 7 year old will, and getting het up over nothing.

For me it does what a lot of adverts do. Make me vaguely want to avoid shopping there. The opposite of what they want. The same with telly ads. I often think that if they are going to treat me like a child/idiot/sex mad loon I don't want to know anything about their company or it's products.

I am considered very prudish, very anti porn, saw another thread on here regarding it. There was an article in the paper recently says 90% of 11 year old boys have watched hard pron, and we are going to get a generation of boys who have a really strange idea of sex and what women actually look like in the buff. HOWEVER, I cannot see any problem with this ad with an ice cream, it could refer to licking someones neck, and I tthink the average bloke would want more than a lick!!!

There have been t shirts with this on sold in seaside towns for years!

I think the poster who said the suggestion will go over some peoples heads may have been right

Do you think it is for men to give to womn, or women to give to men.

Or is it a unisex card! (It is a card isn't it?)

It's just the times we live in sexting, porn all omnipresent. In my opinion this sort of ever present sexual innuendo

But didn't we all grow up in a constant cycle of Carry On Films, those lechy old buggers from On the Buses and smutty seaside postcards?

I think it's always been around.

As a kid I took the comedy from Carry On films, the rest of it went right over my head.

I suggest you don't send your offspring to school then because I can promise they will hear far worse things than this.

^ this

They ARE thinking of the children, that's why they are advertising to them. Not 7 year olds, but young teens - 12 to 16 maybe? It is not an attempt to appeal to a more adult market. It's the kids-watching-porn market.

I received a really pathetic sloppy reply from Paperchase to my complaint. I'm going to take it further:

Shauna (Paperchase)

Thank you for contacting Paperchase Customer Services.

Thank you for taking the time to share your point of view. We genuinely appreciate customers telling us what they think. Paperchase is a fun and cheeky brand and the majority of our customers love us for that! We try & inject some humour into our products and marketing – in fact we’re well known for it - but we do recognise this can occasionally be polarising. We don’t imagine for one minute that we please everyone, and so if on this occasion our sense of humour has caused you offence then we apologise.There is certainly no intent with this window poster to depict women as sex objects – indeed this is the first time we have received feedback suggesting this is the case . As always your feedback is appreciated and duly noted.

Kindest regards,

Paperchase Customer Service

shammz - what are you expecting them to do? Go round every paperchase in the country, rip them down and burn them because you are overreacting? If this is the most important thing you can find to 'take further', you have far too much time on your hands.

It's exactly because no one does anything about this, that gradually it becomes to norm and we'll have overtly sexual images everywhere.

The reasoning that 'they'll hear worse in the playground' make it ok for a parent to use 'fuck' and 'cunt' every other word at home?

There's violence in the world everywhere so we might as well let them watch Saw 99 anyway.

They are going to see sexual images everywhere so why don't we just allow them to watch porn.

I'm exaggerating but you get my point I hope. I just feel it's a slippery slope and brushing it off doesn't feel right.

Shammz I got much the same response 😕

But this isn't a slippery slope - it's very mild and innocuous. Nor is this a new phenomenon - as PPs have said, Carry On films or seaside postcards are smuttier and have been around decades.

You talk about exposing children to sexual images - this isn't it. It can be just as dangerous to oversanitise and bubble wrap children from everything leaving them totally unprepared for the world, which is what will happen if you overreact at every small thing like this.

Take Mary Whitehouse as an example. If you read interviews with her children, all her over-zealous attitude did was ostracise her children and leave them ill-equipped for the real world.

Fennella a few weeks ago many people complained to Papercjase about dinevif thier valentines cards, they removed every single in of them from their shops.
So complaining does work!

I for one don't like the window display. I shop there a lot but if they carry on within this kind of thing I won't be. Can't wait for their Easter and Xmas cards

SAVE THE CHILDREN!
I don't think any babies, toddlers, infants, teenagers, etc will be affected by this ad! I'm more concerned about people who are so easily offended. Maybe it's just easier to stay indoors.

BakeOff - the cards were about anal. It is NOT THE SAME THING. The cards were not suitable for the general public, and I have not said otherwise. My point is not that complaining doesn't work but that the window display in itself is not offensive.

An official complaint

Get a life.

I scream you scream we all scream for ice scream... funnily enough screaming and ice-creaming isn't new!

How?!!! Is it depicting women as sex objects?! Surely an ice cream is more likely a phallic symbol if we're going that far?

You may need more to do with your time...