Bare flesh puts QMS on advertising hit list

IT company QMS UK has featured in the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) report as the tenth most inflammatory advert last year.

One complaint received during the year stemmed from a direct mailing campaign for a range of printers, according to ASA's report, Overview of 1997 and Statistics. One envelope bore a photograph of a pair of bare female legs, with the caption: 'The bare facts inside.'

The mailing showed a naked woman holding a sheet of paper over her body next to the lines: 'We've covered everything', 'One beautifully compact package' and 'It's even better in the flesh'.

Complainants said the mailing and the envelope were offensive and demeaning to women.

But even with the adverts that received the most complaints, the ASA did not uphold the 24 complaints against the company. In the case of QMS, the complaint was not upheld after the advertisers explained the series also included a naked man in a similar pose. They said the images were intended to be a light-hearted way of drawing attention to the features of the printers.

The ASA acknowledged complainants had been offended, but concluded that the mailing was not likely to cause serious or widespread offence to anyone who received it.

See news analysis, page 18.