A motoring advert featuring the cleavage of a woman wearing a white bra with the tagline “Nice Headlamps” has been banned.

The poster for UlsterTrader.com received 44 complaints claiming it was offensive as it objectified women, degraded them and was sexist.

The advert with the line: “Nice headlamps, what do you look for in a car?” also drew complaints it implied that women, like cars, were commodities to be bought and sold.

UlsterTrader.com countered by claiming the advert did not use language that could be considered offensive, nor was the image particularly “raunchy”.

The company claimed their brand was one that used humour and fun plus the tongue-in-cheek advert would be attractive to both sexes.

They disagreed with the contention that it implied that women were commodities to be "bought or sold", or that the ad was sexist for implying women would not need to buy or sell a car.

They also disagreed that the poster was likely to cause serious or widespread offence.

The Advertising Standards Agency (ASA), however, noted complaints that the poster implied women could be bought or sold.

A statement released today declared: “We considered that the image of the woman’s cleavage coupled with the strapline ‘Nice Headlamps. What do you look for in a car?’ was likely to be seen to objectify and degrade women by linking attributes of a woman, her cleavage, to attributes of a car, the headlamps, in a way that would be seen to imply a woman, like a car, was to be selected for those attributes.

“We concluded that the poster had caused serious offence to some readers and was likely to cause widespread offence.”

As a result, the advertising watchdog ruled the advert should not appear again in its current form.

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