Welsh bus company pulls 'Ride me all day' topless photo ads after it's accused of sexism
A bus company based in Cardiff, Wales, has been forced to pull ads on its buses featuring topless models holding signs reading "Ride me all day for £3" after it was accused of sexism.
The ads, promoting New Adventure Travel's new cross-city service in Cardiff, only launched at the weekend but the company withdrew the ads on Monday morning after they sparked outrage, which many people vented on Facebook and Twitter - which is where we first spotted the story.
Welsh singer Charlotte Church even got involved in wave of social media backlash directed at the company:
In view of the reaction to our bus advertising today we wish to set out our position:
Firstly we have stated that our objectives have been to make catching the bus attractive to the younger generation. We therefore developed an internal advertising campaign featuring males and females to hold boards to promote the cost of our daily tickets.
The slogan of 'ride me all day for £3' whilst being a little tongue in cheek was in no way intended to cause offence to either men or women and, if the advert has done so then we apologise unreservedly. There has certainly been no intention to objectify either men or women.
Given the volume of negativity received we have decided to remove the pictures from the back of the buses within the next twenty four hours.