Audi drops not to subtle paedophile car advert!

[Knoxinbox]

There is no way this was just badly thought through....

I think this comment sums it up

“Let's add it up: Red=eroticism, sports car=substitute for potency, animal print mini-skirt=sex appeal, banana=phallic symbol. But sure this is all just accidental...”

Do you think this was someone testing the waters so to speak about how society might respond to something like this? I’ve read quite a few things on here about how the MRA has as its core aim to normalise paedophilia as just another sexual preference (eg minor attracted person) and this was what immediately jumped to my mind with this ad.

What do you think??

@ting really fucking annoys me. If it’s clear I’m on a thread then I don’t need an @ to alert my attention to something I’m going to see anyway.

I don't find the photo disturbing. The slogan of "lets your heart beat faster in every aspect" on the advert with the photo is disturbing. So they were right to be called out on it and remove it.

Also - haven't Audi tried to say it was to show an ability to brake suddenly or avoid accidents or something? If so, what part of that slogan about a heart beating faster fits that message?!

No not posters on MN trying to normalise paedophilia!! They are raising awareness of how some MRAs are trying to

Kantastic

I was replying directly to your message so therefore I @ you, like many other people do.

Your post said that parents were told to not let their kids run around naked as there were people in the area taking and sharing videos/photos - ok.
How does this relate to a girl wearing a dress?

I’ve never seen anyone trying to normalise peadophilia on here or anywhere else.

Then you're not paying attention. There was even a thread a while back about "virtuous pedophilia" and people were claiming it was a sexual orientation. This is a common claim on social media.

No not posters on MN trying to normalise paedophilia!! They are raising awareness of how some MRAs are trying to

Sorry!!!!
I was wondering what you had been reading on here because I knew I hadn’t seen anything like that!

At first glance, the advert does look innocent, but put all together it really isn’t.

This is all very deliberate.

Each element, on its own, absolutely innocent.

Put together, has the potential to spark outrage. But also completely defensible, if we have to. Everyone will be talking about it. Either way, we get tons of publicity.

Benetton and FCUK were doing this 20 years ago. The only new thing is tiptoeing into paedophilia. But then, why am I not surprised.

If I had shown this image with the slogan to my marketing director, she would have handed me my arse on a plate.

Every single time you put something out that communicates for your brand, you need to look at every single angle of the message being communicated. Negative and positive. Audi has enough experience and knowledge to not make mistakes like this. The fact that the image does not communicate with any clarity the tag line means it was weak to start with.

The fact that many of us have enough back history to remember how sex was used to sell cars in the past and can see echoes of it here means that there is indeed a problem.

And that we have been trained, through advertising of the past, to make those associations!!!!

Maybe those who don’t draw the same conclusions have less exposure to it. I wish that I was able to scrub some of the messages from the past from my memory.

Ugh. If some posters have had the luxury of not having seen far too many of the ubiquitous 'girls on bonnets' images; Pirelli posters, motorbike and car magazines, car adverts on ebay even, then they are lucky because if you swapped out the little girl for a 20 year old young woman it would most definitely and very obviously be an image of a sexy girl on the bonnet of a sports car, created to appeal to the straight male fantasy.

It is not 'cool' or family friendly to be making little girls mimic male sexual fantasies, it is disturbing.

Then you're not paying attention.

I have seen the one about Disney trying to normalise peadophilia and use subliminal messages to sexualise kids but I felt it was reaching. I think you could see penis shapes in anything if you look hard enough.

I do agree that there are still people who would like to normalise it but nothing like in the past. Especially in this country where there’s a sex age limit and it is illegal if someone is under age (even though sometimes they only get a slap on the wrist). Celebs used to have people looking the other way, some might do still but if it was found out I think they would be punished for it.

I also did not get a paedophile reference from a picture of a child, how weird to infer that

I was instantly hit with an uncomfortable feeling at seeing a small girl stood right in front of a car though.

If a woman was standing there in those clothes, it would clearly be 'sexy woman, sexy car, let your heart beat faster in every way'.

Swapping the woman for a toddler... I think the intention was to appeal to fathers: you used to buy a car because of the sex appeal, now it's to protect your child- but the cars still sexy.

However it's misfired. That isn't what the add says. The add swaps a child into a sexy adult woman's pose.

The pose, the banana, the tag line are all inappropriate. Having investigated child abuse for many years, that image will absolutely be taken as a sexual image by many paedophiles. These are people who will be sexually aroused by an image of a pair of child’s knickers. Why do you think they stopped using child models in catalogues for certain types of clothing. It’s good that they’ve pulled the advert.

Maybe those who don’t draw the same conclusions have less exposure to it.

I think you've hit the nail on the head here. It would be interesting to know the ages of people who agree/disagree.

For me (30 this year) - I see an advert trying to be cool and that even little girls can be cool and like stylish cars. Maybe even trying to advertise specifically to the newer generations where we try and encourage more females into mechanics and engineering careers. I think the hair cut and denim jacket and the leaning ‘cool’ pose, shows this is what they’re trying to do.

But I think those who see it as wrong for having a banana in her hand and wearing leopard print are from an older generation. So they are used to car adverts trying to ‘turn on’ it’s audience.

It’s not a provocative pose but it is a very weird advert.

It makes me think she’ll be run over.

For those who think it is wrong - would having an apple or chocolate bar in hand make it acceptable?

Looking at the website it appears the brief was to show people relaxing hanging around the car. In the boot, out of the sunroof, sitting against the side etc

She’s meant to look relaxed leaning back, banana odd choice but I reckon it’s a thoughtless shot more than anything.

For those who think it is wrong - would having an apple or chocolate bar in hand make it acceptable?

No. Why have a girl doing anything with her mouth? At all?

@Sunrise234 I’m 39 I don’t see anything provocative about it either.

I'm early 30s. To me, the individual aspects (leopard print, skirt, leaning on car, eating a banana) wouldn't really register with me if there was one or two of them.

But combined with "make your heart beat faster in every way" is terrible and makes me doubt that at least some of the people involved in this advert didn't know exactly what they were doing, trying to skate a bit close to the wire but with plausible deniability as their defence.

Never mind the safety issue.

I think the people saying there is nothing wrong with it whatsoever are the same type of people who take their child the Drag Queen Story Time and think it's all just innocent dressy-uppy fun.

From what I can tell it wasn’t a tag line to an advert. It was a line with the image on Twitter. Which means not a whole team signing it off but some non-thinking person attaching a line and choosing a shot from the shoot.

Why they picked that, I don’t know, it was a blunder.

I’ve never seen anyone trying to normalise peadophilia on here or anywhere else

I read the whole thread giving posters the benefit of the doubt but this appears to be so calculatedly ignorant that I think someone's playing games.

@maxicheddar

Ugh. If some posters have had the luxury of not having seen far too many of the ubiquitous 'girls on bonnets' images; Pirelli posters, motorbike and car magazines, car adverts on ebay even, then they are lucky because if you swapped out the little girl for a 20 year old young woman it would most definitely and very obviously be an image of a sexy girl on the bonnet of a sports car, created to appeal to the straight male fantasy.

It is not 'cool' or family friendly to be making little girls mimic male sexual fantasies, it is disturbing.

Completely agree, maxicheddar - this is what I said on the previous thread.

This is paedophilia hiding in plain sight.

My daughter of 25 responded to the ad with a 'yuck' so it's not generational.

For those who think it is wrong - would having an apple or chocolate bar in hand make it acceptable

Why does she need food at all? That kid, no food, sideways on in a crossed arm “sassy” kind of pose would send a completely different message.

It’s the food*, plus the clothes, plus the leaning back on the bonnet in the same way adult models are used in a “sexy” way that makes it wrong.

*re the food- an apple would give an “adam and eve” vibe, chocolate is also associated with seduction....why the need at all?

I’ve never seen anyone trying to normalise peadophilia on here or anywhere else

I read the whole thread giving posters the benefit of the doubt but this appears to be so calculatedly ignorant that I think someone's playing games.

I’ve looked at the picture over and over again and I can honestly not find anything sexual about it.
I don’t think she’s dressed or acting in a provocative way at all. Even if the same pose was by a 15 year old I still don’t think it would be provocative. If the little girl had loads of make up on or was in a bikini or something then maybe I would agree.

There are adverts where a mother is breast feeding surely some peados get off on that too. But I still wouldn’t call it in appropriate.