Adidas said it received a syndicated loan that would comprise 2.4 billion euros from German public lender KfW, with a further 600 million coming from Adidas' partner banks including HSBC, UniCredit and Deutsche Bank
Adidas said it received a syndicated loan that would comprise 2.4 billion euros from German public lender KfW, with a further 600 million coming from Adidas' partner banks including HSBC, UniCredit and Deutsche Bank

An Adidas UK advertisement campaign for sports bras that showed a grid of women and their bare breasts has been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority due to a series of complaints.

The ads were seen in a tweet and two poster ads in February. Adidas argued that the ads were intended to represent women and the diversity of their breasts. The ASA received 24 complaints about the ads claiming that they were objectifying and sexualizing the women to only body parts, according to the ASA’s Wednesday press release.

Adidas UK believed the images in the ads "were not gratuitous; they were intended to reflect and celebrate different shapes and sizes, illustrate diversity and demonstrate why tailored support bras were important," the release added.

The tweet showed the bare breasts of 20 women of various skin colors, shapes and sizes. The photos were cropped to only show the breasts.

"We believe women's breasts in all shapes and sizes deserve support and comfort. Which is why our new sports bra range contains 43 styles, so everyone can find the right fit for them,” the tweet at the time said.

The posters showed the same cropped images of the bare breasts but of 62 women and stated, “The reasons we didn’t make just one new sports bra.”

The ASA said in the release that it "acknowledged that the intention of the ads was to show that women's breasts differed in shape and size, which was relevant to the sports bras being advertised."

The decision was concluded due to the fact that the advertising did not have much focus on the bras themselves but only on the breast sizes.

“We considered that the depiction of naked breasts was likely to be seen as explicit nudity. We noted the breasts were the main focus in the ads, and there was less emphasis on the bras themselves, which were only referred to in the accompanying text," the ASA said.

The ASA insisted that the ad was banned due to being improperly targeted.

"It is important to note that the ASA ruling was related to this creative being used in an untargeted fashion rather than the creative itself and the message, which we stand proudly behind," the ASA told CNN News Thursday.