By CLAIRE TREVETT and STUART DYE
A Levi's jeans advertisement has been banned from New Zealand screens because of its religious imagery, despite failing to raise eyebrows in Australia.
The Australian-made advertisement showed a young woman rising out of the water in jeans, with the tagline, "Born Again."
It screened on New
Zealand televisions in May.
The Advertising Standards Complaints Board received a complaint from a religious group, objecting to its use of scenes reminiscent of baptism.
Board chief executive Glen Wiggs said the complaint was upheld on grounds of taste.
"The religious connotations were inappropriate," he said.
Levi's spokeswoman Katharine Broughton said complaints about the advertisement were not held up by the Australian Advertising Standards Board.
Although Levi's presented an edited version of it to the Television Commercial Approval Board, which included new footage and removed the Born Again tag, the advertising standard board's ruling was upheld.
Ms Broughton said the commercial was to show the rebirth of Levi's traditional 501 jeans, which had been recut to introduce a new generation to the brand.
The board has ruled on several complaints over jeans ads in recent years, including Just Jeans western cords - an ad spoofing a Western movie, in which a man pulls at a waist band on a woman's jeans and the buttons pop off and hit a row of bottles.
Others included a Just Jeans ad with a young woman wearing a bikini top walking up the beach and another Just Jeans ad depicting two dolls kissing and their campervan rocking back and forth, with giggling sounds.
The board had ruled on several occasions that the use of a certain degree of sexuality was permissible in advertisements for jeans, as by their very nature, jeans were a "sexy" product.
Although the board's decision in the Levi's case indicated jeans were not a religious product, Levi's reported there had been no influx of complaints after the adverts screened.
"The ad doesn't appear to have upset too many people," Ms Broughton said.
"Sales of the recut ... 501s continue to increase ahead of expectations."
