14 DAY TRIAL // Ice cream may be a wonderful treat at any time of day, especially in the summer, but ads for it depicting pregnant nuns are offensive, the Advertising Standards Authority has decided after receiving complaints about one such ad.
According to the Guardian, Catholics in the UK took offense at the printed ad and complained with the ASA, which immediately had it banned, regardless of the company’s attempts at an explanation.
The ad in question, which ran in The Lady and Grazia magazines, shows a heavily pregnant nun, in full religious garb.
In one hand, she’s holding a spoon, while in the other she has a container of Fedirici ice cream. The caption reads “Immaculately Conceived,” which was meant as a pun to show the maker’s dedication to quality ice cream.
Moreover, the pregnant nun ad was part of a campaign called “Ice Cream Is Our Religion,” also based on the idea that making ice cream was more than just business for Fedirici.
“The company said the idea of ‘conception’ represented the development of their ice-cream,” Guardian writes of Fedirici’s defense to the complaints.
“The use of religious imagery was in part because of the company’s commitment to ice-cream and in part ‘to comment on and question, using satire and gentle humor, the relevance and hypocrisy of religion and the attitudes of the church to social issues’,” the publication further informs.
The ASA wasn’t convinced though, saying the ad could be interpreted as a mockery to religious belief, which shouldn’t be condoned either in print or other types of media.
The ad is “likely to be seen as a distortion and mockery of the beliefs of Roman Catholics,” the advertising watchdog ruled.
Consequently, to prevent other believers, especially Catholics, from taking offense with the ad, the ASA had it banned.
“We concluded that to use such an image in a light hearted way to advertise ice-cream was likely to cause serious offence to readers, particularly those who practiced the Roman Catholic faith,” the organization said.
The Immaculately Conceived ad will never run in print again.