Scrolling through Instagram for besties’ latest social updates, a photo of 24 female naked breasts popped up out of the blue. That was Adidas’s campaign promoting its sports bras in early 2022 which went through an absolute viral over the world. Emphasising the diversity of shapes and sizes of female breasts, the brand hoped to promote its latest sports bra with up to 43 styles that could fit any desire.
“All women deserve the best support”
Alongside the hashtag #SupportIsEverything on this ad post, Adidas not only meant to say that their product provides comfort and support to women’s breasts but also shows support towards women and feminism. Pushing the message forward, the ad encouraged women of any race and background to be their true selves, while the visual display of explicit nudity of women’s breasts delivered direct and clear denotation to audiences.
The concept of inclusivity and attempt to test audiences’ bottom line to visual advertisements have drawn massive attention to Adidas. Some showed support for the brand, appreciating its way of promoting body positivity and mutual respect for the human body, specifically to women. As stated on Adidas’s official website, the company emphasises engaging the female consumer community. Not only does it manage ‘Adidas Women’ accounts on various social media platforms, creating tailored content for women, but it also expands the attention to women from external stakeholders to internal talent recruitment, welcoming more female representation in management positions, in the hope of achieving gender balance in the company.
Showing the company’s full advocacy for women’s rights, Adidas made a bold attempt to launch the #SupportIsEverything campaign, being the pioneer to extend advertisement’s possibility of explicitness. However, some heavily criticised the censorship of the advertisement, leading the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) to receive up to 24 complaints, resulting in the advert being banned from being displayed on social media elsewhere in the UK.
One of the significant complaints that the authority received was how the advertisement has commodified women’s bodies while reducing females ‘just to body parts’. Women were dehumanised and their bodies were used as a ‘tool’ to generate revenue for the company in this advertisement. They seemed to be consumed by the objectification of the advertisement. This even led to misogyny, a sign of hatred and prejudice against women where people viewed the advertisement as over-emphasising women’s body parts, yet paying less attention to the product itself.
Outraging comments regarding children being ‘forced’ to view large billboard posters displayed in public also drove concern about whether the ad would cause distress to teenagers. Because of that, the ASA announced that the ad should not be displayed anywhere near schools or sensitive places like religious venues, and was required to carefully target audiences to avoid causing any offence to viewers. With all the bans and restrictions issued by the authority, this brings us back to the discussion of advertising media as a form of public resource. Companies should maximise the reachability of their advertisement to reach the best capacity of target audiences. Yet, when inevitable restrictions are holding the effectiveness of the ad back from positively promoting their product, is it still worth bearing the risk and creating such a challenging campaign?
Untargeted media like most of the advertisements is not only responsible for promoting a brand’s product value but also acting as a mediator to connect a brand and their customers. Adidas’s sports bra ad brought out the topic of feminism, making it visible and reachable to consumers. While Sarah Banet-Weiser pointed out that ‘The dynamic between consent and resistance is a key mobiliser within popular feminism’, media visibility of advertisements in offline or online areas allows people to like, leave comments or even report. All the discussions have brought popular feminism under the spotlight, and ‘redirects what “empowerment” means for girls and women.’ While Adidas has made its valiant step forward in putting the topic of women being individually and mutually respected, it has successfully stated itself as a ‘supporter’ of the women’s community, and its products are the best evidence to prove and tell.
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