Following a Facebook campaign that quickly gained almost 60,000 followers (there were just 4,000 at the time of my posting yesterday), Australian ad company ADSHEL reinstated a tame HIV-prevention ad which featured two men embracing with a condom, and said it would replace them on bus shelters in Brisbane where they had been taken down.
In a statement issued this afternoon, Adshel said many of the complaints were part of an ACL campaign, and that it has reinstated the ads.
"It has now become clear Adshel has been the target of a coordinated ACL campaign," Adshel chief executive Steve McCarthy said. "This has led us to review our decision to remove the campaign, and we will therefore reinstate the campaign with immediate effect."
Earlier today the ACL said the issue with the ads was about condoms, not homosexuality. "I've been labelled homophobic. This has absolutely nothing to do with gay couples," spokeswoman Wendy Francis said."This has nothing to do with anything other than another condom ad in a bus shelter, where the children are catching buses to school and billboards where their parents are stopping at lights. I will continue to fight sexual imagery in our outdoor advertising until we can get it removed."
Watch a protest that was held yesterday at ADSHEL's offices in Brisbane, AFTER THE JUMP…
