Online menswear retailer Jacamo has responded to criticism of a “homophobic” and “gender-shaming” online campaign, saying it was “mortified”.
An online campaign “championing (the) male body and diversity” has backfired after Twitter users slammed and criticised the campaign, saying that it contains a “homophobic undertone” and are “gender shaming”.
The online picture campaign focuses on two men, one male model and one “real man” and always contains the slogan, “real men don’t…”
The campaign which was devised to, “make men feel represented on the high street and to celebrate the diversity of the UK’s men” has seemingly failed to make its point in practice.
The advert which has caused the most offence shows two men, one posing with a “man bag” and the other with a football. The slogan reads, “Real men have balls, not man bags”.
Speaking to THEGAYUK.com Ed Watson of Jacamo said,
“Here at Jacamo championing male body and fashion diversity is really close to our hearts.
“We want to encourage all guys to feel confident – regardless of age, size, shape, colour or sexual orientation and that’s why we launched our Real Man Runway competition, to make more men feel represented on the high street and to celebrate the diversity of the UK’s men. Encouragingly we have loads of entries which are testament to this aim.
“Our social tweets were supposed to be a fun way of illustrating that there is more than one type of man something that the Real Man Runway competition is trying to do.
“We are mortified that this caused any offence and of course apologise.”
