Online adverts for marketplace Temu have been banned after a watchdog ruled they “sexualised children” and “objectified women”.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) had banned five adverts for Temu. Seen in June, they featured on a chess website, a translation service, puzzle app, and news website. They included images of a young girl wearing a bikini, a woman wearing a white halterneck dress cropped so that only her torso and arms were shown, and a woman wearing a white crop top with only her chest, arms and midriff pictured.
The ad seen on the puzzle app featured images of leopard print underwear with the back removed. It also featured a woman wearing a short black skirt and tights with only her legs showing.
The ASA received five complaints that the ads were likely to cause serious or widespread offence, were irresponsible and were inappropriately targeted. Whaleco UK Ltd, trading as Temu, said it is a global online platform which launched in the UK in 2023.
It said the product descriptions, including the images, displayed on the marketplace were provided by third-party sellers, who were obliged to adhere to Temu’s policies. It said the image of the child in the bikini was provided by the seller and violated Temu’s marketing policy.
The image had been removed from its Google Ads account and would not be shown again. The marketplace said images of models without a face were not intended to sexually objectify the women but were there to show customers “a clear representation of how the clothing was worn”.
Upholding the complaints, the ASA said additional images in the ads of a facial roller and balloon ties were phallic-shaped and “in the absence of any explanation, could have been interpreted as sexual in nature”.
The ASA ruled that the ads must not appear again in their current form, adding: “We told Temu to ensure that future ads were prepared with a sense of responsibility to consumers and to society and that they did not cause serious or widespread offence by presenting products in a sexual way in general media or by presenting individuals as stereotypical sexual objects.
“In addition, persons who were or appeared to be under 18 years of age in ads must not be portrayed in a sexual way and ads must be responsibly targeted.”
