A US cloud supplier – Fortacloud – appears to have learnt the hard way about European sensibilities when it posted an advert for its products using a woman in her underwear.
After all, whenever you think of cloud storage the first thing that pops into your mind is a nearly naked woman in her drawers.
The pic was used to accompany a Twitter promotion and it created an uproar amongst its 22,000 followers.
IT consultant Richard Price wondered what a picture of a half-naked woman draped on a bed have to do with discounted hosting and wondered how this was not sexist.
Product designer Nils Hoenson replied: “Why the hell are you using a picture of a half-naked women to advertise cheap hosting? Sexist idiots.”
Good product attention right? Not really. As one customer pointed out it made him think is the product is so weak they have to go for the lowbrows with cheap sex.
Fortacloud seemed bewildered by the UK response, after all in America you can have tits with everything, only if you show a bloke in his underpants you can be burnt at the stake.
Another attempted to justify the use of the image: “Well, 99 percent of our customers are male between the ages of 18 and 42.”
Of course this made matters worse.
IT consultant Sally Jenkinson tweeted that the original ad was poor. “Your responses take it to a different level and it was an awful judgement,” she said.
After all they are saying that every male in that age range, in their business engagements, wants to look at pictures of birds in their underwear.
