Beach body advert ruling 'laughable' says woman behind #eachbodysready campaign

The woman behind the #eachbodysready campaign says the advertising watchdog's ruling on the Protein World advert is "laughable".

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said the weight-loss product's poster featuring a woman in a bikini asking 'Are you beach body ready?' was not offensive or irresponsible.

But Blythe Pepino, the lead singer of The Vaults who started a campaign against the ads, says that's not true.

"It's just really lazy," she said.

"It's really lazy advertising. They're just using the most negative and conventional ideas of body image to make money."

Blythe Pepino, lead singer of the Vaults, started the #eachbodysready campaign

The ASA received almost 400 complaints from people saying the Protein World's poster implied other body shapes were inferior.

More than 70,000 people signed a petition calling for it to banned

"They (the advertisers) have a lot of power to change our mindsets, the way we perceive ourselves and the way we think our culture perceives us," Blythe told Newsbeat.

"It's about time to try and show there's an alternative opinion to what's being bandied about."

The original poster ads were "updated" by campaigners

In the ruling, the ASA said: "We recognised that 'beach body' was a relatively well understood term that for some people had connotations of a toned, athletic physique similar to the image of the model in the ad.

"We considered that it also had a broader meaning - that of feeling sufficiently comfortable and confident with one's physical appearance to wear."

The posters were vandalised after they appeared on London Underground

Following the ruling, Protein World told Newsbeat: "We're happy to see that common sense has prevailed and the ASA have ruled our recent 'Are You Beach Body Ready?' advert to be inoffensive.

"We shall continue our fight against the global obesity epidemic as we strive to make the world leaner, fitter, healthier and stronger."

The ad is banned in the UK in its current form over concerns that its health and nutrition claims were not authorised on the EU Register.

Protein World told Newsbeat the next campaign is in the planning stages.

Some advertising campaigns featuring women in bikinis have received praise.

This Girl Can campaign features a girl in a bikini

Others have raised the question of why scantily clad men still appear in ads on the underground without any complaints.

One man tweeted a film poster of Magic Mike

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