A campaign manager for Missguided has defended a racy advert which was banned from airing in 2019.
Treasure, a senior creative at the retailer’s HQ in Manchester, was the brain behind a suggestive advert which aired during an episode of Love Island in 2019, and was banned shortly after on the grounds it ‘objectified women’.
Treasure opens up about the campaign in Channel 4’s Inside Missguided: Made in Manchester, which airs tonight at 9pm.
Speaking about the controversial TV advert, Treasure said she got praise from Missguided CEO Nitin Passi, and said she would have been criticised for not being ‘disruptive enough’ if the advert had not been banned.
In the documentary, the millionaire CEO explained he was not concerned about it being banned because he wanted to see his brand covered in the press.
Treasure, a senior creative at the retailer’s HQ in Manchester, was the brain behind the suggestive advert. She said she refceived praised after the advert was banned
The advert was banned after airing during an Episode of Love Island in 2019 after people complained it ‘objectified women’
In the advert, which was filmed in Ibiza, women strut around a beach, wearing small bikinis, lying in the sand and eating strawberries.
The advert states: ‘If you plan on wearing clothes this summer, we’ve got you covered. Kind of,’ followed by a winky face.
‘We got one complaint for this advert,’ Treasure explained. ‘We have to remember the context of the advert.
‘We were on in between Love Island, where women line up in a bikini and men go, “oh, that one” or “maybe not” or “that one” and they pick a woman from a line-up in a bikini.’
Treasure said she would have received criticism from CEO Nitin Passi if the video had not been ‘disruptive enough’
Asked whether she agreed with the point the complaint was trying to make, Treasure said she didn’t.
‘I’m not looking at it like that,’ she said. ‘I’m looking at it like, “She looks amazing, she looks like she’s having fun, she’s confident, the product looks sick”.’
She said the video was ‘aspirational’ and the best way to catch the attention of Love Island audiences.
‘I have to shift £8million worth of bikinis in a set amount of time, that’s my goal,’ she said.
Missguided CEO Nitin Passi said he was not concerned about advert being banned and wanted the brand to be in the press (pictured in California, in 2019)
‘We do like to get in a little bit of trouble as it is,’ she smiled, adding that the banned advert ‘ticks every box’.
‘If somebody hadn’t had complained, Nitin would have probably been like, “This is not disruptive enough, didn’t cause enough drama, didn’t get in the press”,’ Treasure said.
She added that she had got ‘a lot of praise’ for the advert, and that there was no ‘such thing as bad publicity’.
Nitin, who’s been at the head of Missguided since 2009, agreed. ‘Any PR is good PR: getting our advert banned is not necessarily a concern for me,’ he admitted.
‘We’re always gonna annoy people with what we do, but getting in the press is a good thing.
‘Biting a strawberry and banning us on the basis of that is absolutely ridiculous – people bite strawberries every day.’
Inside Missguided: Made in Manchester airs on Wednesday on Channel 4 at 9pm.