Outrage as cloud firm tweets 'sexist' pic

Fortacloud promotes discounts deal with image of woman in her underwear

A cloud company has come under fire after it used a photo of a scantily clad woman to accompany a promotion on Twitter.

Yesterday afternoon, US-based Fortacloud, which specialises in enterprise cloud, tweeted a link to a promotion which contained an image of a woman wearing only underwear and heels (see below), sparking an uproar among many of its 22,000 followers.

"What the hell does a picture of a half-naked woman draped on a bed have to do with discounted hosting? How is this not sexist?" tweeted IT consultant Richard Price.

"Why the hell are you using a picture of a half-naked women to advertise cheap hosting? Sexist idiots," product designer Nils Hoenson replied to Fortacloud.

"All it makes me think is your product is so weak you have to go for the lowbrows with cheap sex. So I'd avoid," tweeted technical strategist Thayer Prime.

Fortacloud could not be reached by CRN for comment but replied to some of the critical tweets in a bid to defend itself.

"I don't believe it falls under the definition of sexism. Sorry if we offended you," said one Fortacloud tweet.

Another attempted to justify the use of the image: "Well, 99% of our customers are male between the ages of 18 and 42."

The responses from Fortacloud appeared to rile followers even more.

"[The] original ad was poor. Your responses take it to a different level. Awful judgement. Whenever I'm asked for [recommendations] I'll warn people off," tweeted IT consultant Sally Jenkinson.

"I just think it is ridiculous and will absolutely not be a customer of yours. I'm 21 and male," said web developer Shane Hudson on Twitter.

Julie Simpson, managing director of channel firm ResourceiT and the Women in Technology lead for the UK International Association for Microsoft Channel Partners (IAMCP) said the post was "disturbing".

"We all like creative advertising... but good marketing at least has some vague link to the message you're trying to put out to your prospects - what does this even say to their target audience? ‘We're a bunch of lads! Up the lads, let's have a look at this!'," she said.

"I am absolutely fascinated by who would ever think this is a good strategic decision. What is even more disturbing is the way they've reacted to the reaction from people on Twitter. When challenged, a much better reaction would have been 'do you know what? On reflection, I think you might be right', and they could have built so much more credibility and respect. Everyone makes mistakes and no one gets it right all the time, but when it's drawn attention to, to say 'sorry you don't like it, tough, other people do it', is just an absolute joke.

"Are they saying that every male in that age range, in their business engagements, wants to look at pictures of chicks in their underwear - that will be a brush with tar on, will it?"