Photo via lifesitenews.com

At least two Canadian cities ban offensive “Virgin” transit ads

Calgary is one of at least two Canadian cities that have pulled sexually suggestive ads, one of which involved a gay theme with two men, from public transit shelters after an outburst of complaints, reports Thaddeus M. Baklinski, LifeSiteNews.com.

The ads for Virgin Mobile cell phones show two men, or a man and a woman, in passionate embraces, with one person in each picture dressed up with angel's wings. The caption under the picture reads "Hook Up Fearlessly." In current jargon to ‘hook up’ with someone typically means to have casual sex.

Transit authorities in Calgary and Mississauga have told the company to remove the ads. The highly sensual ads on Toronto bus shelters were not pulled and continued to be displayed throughout the Christmas shopping season.

Calgary Transit spokesman Ron Collins told Sun Media the ads were deemed "a bit too provocative," and though he did not explain why the ads had been approved in the first place, he said the complaints received mention the positioning of the models' hands in two of the ads.

“In both cases we thought the hand positioning of the male on the female was inappropriate – one of them is on her bare thigh and the other one is on her buttocks,” Mr. Collins said.

“If you look at that through the eyes of a child using the transit system, we didn't think it was appropriate they should be subjected to that,” Collins added.

Virgin Mobile chief marketing officer Nathan Rosenberg told Sun Media the ads were due to be replaced this week by the company's next ad campaign in any event and made no apologies for the offensive graphics.

“Virgin's advertising always tends to have an edge to it,” he said. “We're very interested in creating advertising that creates discussion. It's quite interesting for us because these are the sorts of images people are bombarded with every day.”

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TAGS: Canada sexually suggestive ads Virgin Mobile cell phones Christmas shopping season Virgin's advertising

[01/12/2010]

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