Naked Man In La Redoute Children's Clothing Ad Gives Company PR Pain

Naked Man In La Redoute Children's Clothing Ad Gives Company PR Pain


Note to management: If you're selling children's clothing by featuring kids running along the beach in your ads, not airbrushing out the naked guy in the background could cause some problems.

At a minimum, some people are going to wonder how you missed the birthday suit -- and doubt that you did.

Earlier this week, La Redoute, a French clothing company, posted a picture on its website that featured a boy wearing its T-shirt running along the beach with three other children his age. Behind the kids, there was a man who, with the help of a zoom feature on the site, could clearly be seen in his birthday suit, according to the French news website 20 Minutes.

Though the French have a reputation for relaxed attitudes toward nudity, Magali Gruet, the head of the Parisian news department of 20 Minutes, said many readers considered the ad offensive.

"It is definitely an outrage, especially on a page with children," Gruet told HuffPost Weird News. "It has shown up on Twitter, and then people shared it during lunch break."

La Redoute sought to nip any potential fallout by publishing an apology:

"La Redoute apologizes for the photo published on its site and is taking steps to remove it. We have opted to delete all the posts including this picture.

"We are aware that it may offend the sensibilities of surfers. We will strengthen the validation process of all brand communications so this can not happen again in the future."

RedBedroom wrote:Publicity stunt.

CeCe wrote:

That was my first thought too. It seems the area would be closed to the public while doing the photography for the company. Even then it should have been caught before it was published.