Earlier this week, the country woke up to hoardings of an apparel brand, showing Ranveer Singh, the ambassador for Jack and Jones, a Danish fashion brand, hoisting a lady across his shoulder, as a lift operator looks on. The cheery look on the faces of all three is accompanied with the caption “Don’t hold back. Take your work home.” The company duly apologised and took down the ads, but not before the furore had taken over social media. “We didn’t intend to offend anyone with one of our billboards. #NOTHOLDINGBACK and withdrawing it immediately,” the brand’s official handle tweeted.
Actor Siddharth had taken to Twitter earlier to decry the ad, and said, “A new low for women’s rights in the workplace in India. What were they thinking? #Fail (sic.)” His tweet was retweeted over 1,000 times. Multiple users also complained to the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI).
“The advertisement is downright cheap, degrading, demeaning and backward,” asserts Rajiv Rao, national creative director of Ogilvy & Mather. “Everyone in the team is equally responsible for the debacle — the agency, the brand, and the celebrity. It’s surprising that something as glaringly offensive as this was passed.” Actress Tannishtha Chatterjee also says that the onus lies on the content creators to avoid such regressive advertisements. “It’s very irresponsible on the brand’s part to promote such blatant sexism and this won’t be stopped till we keep voicing our thoughts strongly,” she says.
