Conservatives couldn’t silence the excitement surrounding a risque tourism poster promoting the ‘G-Spot of Europe’, more commonly known as Lithuanian’s capital Vilnius.
The advert dropped drawers, sorry, jaws in August last year for using an image of a woman in the midst of climax while sprawled across a map of Europe and clutching the location of Vilnius.
The image itself was enough to set conservatives off on a warpath to have the ‘O’ffensive poster discarded before it could be placed in overcrowded public spaces.
A complaint was submitted to the country’s advertising watchdog as Vilnius’ Archbishop Gintaras Grusas described the ad as an exploitation of women that promotes “sex tourism”.
Unfortunately for conservatives, the complaint was rejected by the Advertising Standards Authority, which deemed it as appropriate for its intended audience of 18-to-35-year-olds.
Image: Kipras Štreimikis/Unsplash
“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 watchdog explained.
“We considered the ad did not contain anything which pointed to an exploitative or degrading scenario or tone.”
Advertising Standards Authority
“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.”
- READ: Jaws dropping over controversial tourism ad
- READ: European airline stuns with sleek new cabin crew uniforms
- READ: Airline operates first single-use plastic-free flight