Slim-fast faces anger over D-Day ad PDF Print E-mail
http://media.guardian.co.uk/advertising/story/0,7492,1229815,00.html

Patrick Barrett
The Guardian Wednesday June 2, 2004

Slim-Fast, the Unilever owned slimming brand, has been accused of exploiting the sixtieth anniversary of the D-Day landings in its latest advertising campaign.

Press and poster ads for Slim-Fast featuring bikini-clad women under the line "We'll fight them on the beaches", the line used by Winston Churchill in his famous wartime speech, have prompted 15 complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).

The ads have been condemned as "offensive" and "disrespectful" of those who died during the Allied landings in Normandy.

A spokeswoman for the ASA said the watchdog was considering whether to investigate the complaints formally.

"The ad was seen as offensive in the light of the sixtieth anniversary of the landings and because of its reference to Churchill's speech," she said.

The ad, which ran on poster sites and in the Daily Mail and the Express, promoted a campaign by Slim-Fast to persuade women to lose weight for the summer and look good in swim-wear on the beach.

The ad used camouflage colours and called on women to "Enlist for the free Slim-Fast Let's Bikini plan." Another line added: "3 weeks and we'll be a smaller size - You got that foreign girls?"

A spokesman for Slim-Fast said research for the campaign had found the "We'll fight them on the beaches" strap line had been seen in the context of slimming, by the product's target audience.

"We never set out to offend anybody," he said.
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