Cousins! H&M has officially pulled an international marketing ad for school uniforms following viral complaints accusing the clothing retailer of sexualizing young children!
According to The Independent, the controversial display Ad, showed an image of two adolescent girls in a pinstripe primary school dress uniform alongside the slogan,” Make those heads turn in H&M’s Back to School fashion.”
The displayed $29.99 school dresses were featured a part of a sponsored ad on social media in Australia, reports the New York Post.
As the discussed images began to circulate on social media with online users accusing them of “promoting pedophilia.”, H&M moved to withdraw the ad and has since issued an apology.
“What is your intention with this sponsored Facebook ad? Little schoolgirls generally don’t want to “turn heads”. The large numbers I engage with in schools want to be left alone to learn and have fun and not draw unwanted attention to their appearance,” wrote an Australian media Melinda Tankard Reist after noticing the AD on facebook.
“The little girls parents generally prefer heads don’t ‘turn’ when others see their daughters walking to school, on a bus or in class. Why would you want to fuel the idea that little girls should draw attention to their looks, bodies and ‘style’?”
She added,”…have a word to your marketing team and come up with something that doesn’t draw attention to prepubescent girls already struggling to thrive in a culture that values ‘lookism’ as an aspirational goal.”
“Stop objectifying and sexualizing little girls, these models look no more than SIX YEARS OLD. Take it down,” wrote another user.
“This is absolutely creepy. Take it down,”
“This ad has been removed,” reads a tweet from the company their official Twitter (X) account.
“We are deeply sorry for the offense this has caused and will look into how we present campaigns going forward.”
Cousins, what are your thoughts on this?
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