Foster's pulls risque campaign

Foster's has pulled an advertising campaign that it admitted was too risque for TV just days after it was released online.

The series of seven ads for Carlton Draught, which make reference to ''man plums'' and ''goolies'', were released on to the internet last Wednesday.

The company aborted a TV campaign in late February, days before it was due to go to air, after senior executives in the listed alcohol manufacturer got cold feet about the ads.

The company then decided that having spent the best part of the $200,000 it had paid in fees and production, it felt compelled to release the ads on the internet in the hope that somehow only its target market of 18 to 30-year-old men would see them. That strategy appears to have failed.

No reason was given by Foster's as to why the ads were pulled from the dedicated website www.anyexcuse.com.au that was created to ''test'' the ads online before considering whether they should see the light of day on TV.

Yesterday, a Foster's spokesman issued a short blunt statement. ''The ad and the campaign is finished. We have nothing further to say.''

The ads were made by Foster's agency Clemenger BBDO.

- © Fairfax NZ News