The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) have banned an ad for a ‘nude scanner’ mobile app after complaints that it is demeaning for women.
Aired during between episodes of Hollyoaks on Channel 4, the ad showed a smartphone scanning a woman’s body to show nude images, with the crotch and breasts remained blurred.
The advert’s voice-over illustrated the app as a means to ‘prank your friends to think you can see what any of them look like without clothes on’.
ASA said in a statement that as the ad focused on the product’s apparent ability to enable the user to view naked images of women using the camera on their phone, and had a prolonged focus on the female model, it was unsuitable for a child audience and was likely to be viewed as demeaning to women and, therefore, offensive.
"Whilst younger children may not understand the references to a ‘nude scanner’, that was unlikely to be the case for older children and we considered them to be the group most likely to have been interested in downloading the app," the agency added.
The app’s developer Jesta, which has also developed the Crazy Frog ringtone phenomenon, has already taken down the ad after complaints were raised.
