- The Advertising Regulatory Board found Takealot guilty of advertising offensive merchandise on its website.
- The item in question was a rose gold bracelet with the words “Best F***ing B****es” on it.
- The online retailer has since removed the product, but many other products with offensive language can still be found on its website.
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Online retailer Takealot found itself on the wrong side of the Advertising Regulatory Board (ARB) for listing a bracelet that says “Best F***ing B****es”.
A complainant wrote to the regulatory body to say the rose gold bracelet was offensive and derogatory against women.
Another concern was that the Takealot website has no age restriction, meaning children could also view the offensive advert.
The retailer removed the bracelet from its catalogue, but there are still other items with derogatory and offensive words on the Takealot website.
ARB response
Although Takealot is not a member of the ARB, the regulator said:
No advertising may offend against good taste or decency or be offensive to public or sectoral values or sensitivities, unless the advertising is reasonable and justifiable in an open and democratic society … Advertisements should contain nothing that is likely to cause widespread or sectoral offense.
The sale of the bracelet in question was not the problem; the offensive words featured on it being advertised was, as both words are universally unacceptable in the advertising industry.
“There are a number of words that are considered unacceptable in advertising globally, and ‘f***ing’ is certainly one of them. Combined into the phrase ‘f***ing b****es’ exacerbates the problem,” said the ARB.
Screen shot of Takealot’s offensive merchandise
With Takealot being one of the largest online retailers in South Africa, there is a good chance that a large number of people searching for an item using the keywords “jewellery”, “bracelet” or “bangle” could be presented with the offensive message.
For this reason, the ARB found Takealot’s advert offensive, but no further action was necessary since the retailer had already removed the advert.
We reached out to Takealot for comment, but the retailer hadn’t responded to our requests by the time of publication.