KUALA LUMPUR, May 21 — American automobile company Ford's joint venture in China has removed an advertisement featuring Marilyn Monroe’s iconic white dress air vent scene.
This was following backlash from social media users.
The advertisement, which was copied from Monroe’s 1955 film The Seven Year Itch, was to promote the company's latest SUV, Ruijie Plus.
According to Chinese portal The Paper, Ford had released the advertisement on Weibo on Tuesday with a short video saying, “Is it true that according to Japanese manga, boys run so fast that he can make girls’ dresses fly up?"
“Today with a young sister clad in a white dress here, let’s re-stage the classical scene in Japanese manga,” the post said.
The post ends with “Ruijie Plus will be a feast for your eyes”.
Following a deluge of criticism from social media users, who described it as “vulgar” as it showed a woman’s legs, the company issued a statement through its Weibo that they were taking down the advertisement.
“We realise we are wrong and we have taken down the advertisement. We apologise sincerely. This mistake will not be committed again in the future and we will follow strictly online content values,” read the post.
