A website has renamed the product “Slut Mix” after a complaint to the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) was upheld — but the same product and description remain on other sites.
The product description stated that “Slut Mix does attract a fair bit of attention, not least because of the name! However, it’s a serious product that… really can work. If your mare is constantly in and out of season, aggressive and temperamental then this product has proved to be highly successful in easing the problem”.
The complainant who, the ASA said, “believed the ad, especially the name of the product, was sexist and perpetuated negative stereotypes of women, challenged whether it was offensive”.
LeMieux Ltd said it was a third-party stockist of the product, which was named by its manufacturer. The company told the ASA it did not advertise the product beyond its listing on the website, and asked the manufacturer to comment on the complaint.
“The manufacturer said ‘slut’ was a term commonly used by horse trainers to refer to a problem filly,” the ASA ruling states. “They said that the product was exclusively for horses and they did not intend to cause offence to people. They said that the product had been on sale since 2000 and was sold in 15 countries.”
In upholding the complaint, the ASA noted that customers would know the product was for horses.
“However, the term ‘slut’ was a well-known negative stereotype of women and was commonly used to refer to women who had or were perceived to have many sexual partners, in a derogatory way that passed judgment on those behaviours,” the ASA stated. “We considered that, even in the context of an ad for horse supplements, consumers were likely to consider the word ‘slut’ to be highly offensive, derogatory towards women and sexist. For those reasons, we concluded that the ad, which included an offensive gender stereotype, was likely to cause serious offence.”
The ASA ruled that the ad must not appear again in its current form, adding: “We told LeMieux Ltd to ensure that their future ads did not contain anything that was likely to cause serious or widespread offence, including the use of offensive gender stereotypes.”
A LeMieux spokesman told H&H: “We are a third-party stockist of this product and have renamed it on our website to Mare Mix in recognition of the negative connotations associated with the original product name.”
The product is still on sale elsewhere, still named Slut Mix and with the original description. Manufacturer Herbal Wise declined to comment when approached by H&H.
The ASA told H&H it will be in touch with other sites on which the product is still named Slut Mix, with the original description, to let them know they must change the wording in accordance with the ruling. As the product is made in Ireland, it would be up to the ASA for Ireland to decide whether it breaches rules there.
“We encourage anyone with concerns about any ads they’ve seen to get in touch,” the spokesman said.
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