New Delhi: After people criticised the substance of the ad for fostering sexual assault culture the Union Information and Broadcasting Ministry urged social media companies Twitter and YouTube to take down a ‘derogatory’ advertisement of men’s perfume Layer’r Shot.
The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) has also requested that this ad be taken down immediately.
‘It has come to the attention of MIB India that a deodorant advertising that is inappropriate and disparaging is spreading on social media.’ The Ministry has requested that all instances of this commercial be removed immediately from Twitter and YouTube. The TV station where it aired has already taken it down on MIB’s orders,’ the ministry added.
The two adverts for the Body Spray received a lot of backlash online because of their content. Four young men are in a cosmetic section of a shopping store with a lady in front of them in one of the adverts. When the men notice the remaining bottle of Layer’r ‘Shot’ perfume in the rack, they debate who will take the ‘Shot,’ which makes the lady uneasy. ‘Hum chaar aur ye ek.. Shot kon lega,’ the lady says, turning back and giving them an angry look, only to discover that the men are discussing ‘Shot,’ the body spray.
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In the second commercial, a couple is shown in their bedroom when four of the man’s male friends enter and ask, ‘Shot mara lagta hai?’ He responds, ‘ha mara na.’ In the next scene, a friend says, ‘ab humari baari,’ and then proceeds to get the ‘Shot’ body spray that has been left in the room.
People were angry with the content and the business that created the ad, as well as the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI), which approved the ads. ‘How can these kinds of advertising get allowed, they’re nasty and filthy.’ ‘Is @layerr shot full of perverts?’ one woman wondered on Twitter, while others urged ASCI to ‘immediately stop this filth.’
‘Thank you for including us in your tag. The advertisement is against the public interest and violates the ASCI Code. We’ve taken swift action and alerted the advertiser that the ad will be suspended pending an investigation,’ the ASCI said, adding that both the government and the ASCI have intervened to prevent the offensive Layerr Shot commercial from being published any further.
In a letter to Twitter and YouTube, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) stated that the videos posted on their platforms are “detrimental to the portrayal of women in the interest of decency or morality and in violation of Rule 3 (1)b(ii) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021, which states that users shall not host, display, upload, modify, publish, transmit, or broadcast any material that is harmful to the portrayal of women in store, update or share any information which is insulting or harassing on the basis of gender.