Bus company’s tongue-in-cheek advert sparks outrage

A BUS company has prompted outrage by using an advert which shows topless models holding up signs saying “Ride me all day for £3 (R55)”.

New Adventure Travel based in Cardiff, excitedly took to Twitter yesterday morning to promote the new provocative adverts which have been emblazoned across the back of ten new buses.

One advert showed a darkhaired woman posing in a sultry manner with the suggestive sign, while another showed the same sign being held by a topless male model. But the campaign backfired when passengers condemned the company for being “unacceptable” and “insulting”. Others accused the company of promoting sexism and rape culture.

Singer Charlotte Church even waded into the debate, saying the signs were atrocious.

Stephen Doughty, the MP for Cardiff South and Penarth, said that the company’s managing director should scrap the adverts following the “misjudgment”.

But a spokesman for the company released a statement saying the adverts were intended to be a “tongue-in-cheek way” of making bus-catching more attractive to the younger generation.

The spokesman apologised unreservedly and said would remove all the material from the back of the buses in light of the negativity.

After the advert was posted online, members of the Cardiff Feminist Network described it as disgusting and a “terrible error of judgment”. – Daily Mail