‘Ride me all day’ bus pisses everyone off on a rainy Cardiff Monday morning
I was cycling down Cowbridge Road this morning, feeling very pleased with myself for not puking in the dentist’s chair, when I got stuck behind this bus:
It said lots of things to me. It said that, in 2015, an advertising agency and ‘family-run’ company still found it acceptable to run this ad. It said that a bus journey needs to be sexualised in order to sell itself. It said that prostitution is something to be trivialised and joked about.
What it didn’t say is: “this company is for people like you”.
It was aggressive, offensive and impolite. After I tweeted about it at 9.30, we had literally hundreds of responses. Not from ‘bleeding heart, whiney liberals’, but from people who didn’t want this kind of advertising shoved in their face first thing in the morning.
We then found out that the company receive Welsh Government funding, and run school buses.
With our following of 30,000 people, we try not to use We Are Cardiff to express opinions, but we felt like we had an obligation to the women and men of the city to call this company out on the commodification of a woman’s body, and the trivialisation of prostitution.
The story was covered by the Guardian, the Huffington Post, the Independent, the Mirror, Western Mail and ITV, and by the Everyday Sexism campaign. Even the Daily Mail and Daily Star reported it! As a result of such incredible pressure, the company told Cardiff MP Stephen Doughty that it was a ‘misjudgement’, and that the adverts would be withdrawn within the day.
The company made a statement saying that the “objectives have been to make catching the bus attractive to the younger generation”. Do young people buy stuff because it uses prostitution as a marketing tool? We don’t think so!
Well done, people of Cardiff (and everywhere else), for making your voice heard and getting results.
Moral of the story: GET ANGRY AND GET SOMETHING DONE! Never stay quiet!!!
Big love from your We Are Cardiff women – Hana & Helia x
We Are Cardiff 
Just wondered if you have the ‘Aussie’s suck” adverts in Cardiff (I’m sure you must do). Do you think that those are acceptable? Two of those adverts sexualize men and one a woman.
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I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of those adverts here – have you got a link?
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I just read about this in the papers, it seems that there is an advert with a man too but you have failed to mention this here. This article makes it sound like it’s only sexualizing a woman. You said that you had to “call this company out on the commodification of a woman’s body” but they were doing the same to a man’s body. Please call the company out for doing this too.
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Hiya – I only saw the advert with the woman, not the one with the man. It doesn’t make it any better that they have made a ham-fisted attempt at neutrality by having two different adverts, in my opinion! Both are objectifying and unnecessary. The main problem that I have is that it trivialises prostitution- doesn’t matter if it’s a man or woman, it’s still a crappy way to advertise a bus journey!
If you’ve seen something that you’re not happy with it, definitely contact the company and complain to them.
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Reblogged this on Welshbiz WordPress Blog.
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