TIMES 'BARE' AD GETS YANKED
‘Lactation cookie’ billboard too titillating
This ad got baby bumped. A Times Square advertisement of a pregnant cookbook author exposing her belly and covering her nipples with cookies was taken down after just 72 hours, the writer said on Instagram.
Clear Channel Outdoor decided the 45-foot-wide digital billboard image of Molly Baz hawking “lactation cookies” was “inappropriate,” Baz said in a post.
The ad was for Swehl cookies — a brand made from ingredients like oats, fennel and brewer’s yeast that are claimed to stimulate milk production — with the tagline “Just add milk.”
Baz formulated the recipe as part of a partnership with the pregnancy and breast-feeding startup.
It didn’t take long for the attention-grabbing ad to be replaced by Clear Channel Outdoor, which owns and oversees many billboards in Times Square and elsewhere around the city.
Brex, a San Franciscobased fintech company which arranged for the placement of the ad, received an email from the company that the ad had been “flagged for review” and was swapped with a less revealing image from the campaign, The New York Times reports.
“Turns out these big ti--ies and preggo belly were a little too much for times square,” the “More is More” author wrote on Instagram.
It’s a coverup
The markedly less revealing replacement photo shows Baz smiling in her kitchen, her belly still prominently visible but her chest now covered by a purple crop top and a short, pink buttondown blouse.
“Extremely disappointed and yet not at all surprised that our cheeky little breastfeeding empowerment campaign was deemed ‘innapropriate’ [sic] by @clearchanneloutdoor and our billboard removed after just 3 days,” she lamented.
Baz pointed out that Times Square fashion billboards showing
skin are nothing new and she theorized the context of the image is what got it pulled.
“Take one look at the landscape of other billboards in Times Square and I think you’ll see the irony,” she wrote.
“Bring on the lingerie so long as it satiates the male gaze.”
Time Square ads for brands like Michael Kors, Rocawear and Calvin Klein routinely feature scantily clad models — both women and men — peddling everything from underwear to lingerie to athletic wear.
Despite the setback, Baz was undeterred on Mother’s Day.
“Are we outraged? Yes,” she said. “Will that stop us from celebrating the miracle and magic of motherhood this weekend? F--k no.”
Clear Channel Outdoor did not respond to a request for comment.