Singer Charlotte Church among critics of 'sexually explicit' topless image to advertise New Adventure Travel's day saver ticket on new Cardiff route
A bus company has been criticised for using a picture of a topless woman holding a sign saying "ride me all day for just £3" in an advertisement.
Charlotte Church, the singer, is among those who lambasted New Adventure Travel for the "abhorrent" and "hugely offensive" advert on buses to publicise a day saver ticket.
The Cardiff Bay-based bus company, which also used a similar advert featuring a topless man, is now removing the images following the "volume of negativity" it has received.
Passengers were outraged by the black and white image of the bare-chested woman, which featured on the back of buses running on a new service.
Ms Church was among those who took to Twitter after the company posted pictures of the adverts on the social network.Commuter Indianna Murphy said: "This advert is horrendous. Using a naked women and sexual innuendo to promote a bus service is disgraceful and seriously misguided. It makes me seriously uncomfortable."
Customer Marianne Rhiannon said that New Adventure Travel "clearly have a shocking attitude towards half the population".
She added: "This is an absolutely disgraceful advert promoting sexism and rape culture. I will not be using the service until these as removed and assurances are given that women are safe travelling on these buses."
New Adventure Travel said it was aiming to "make buses cool" ahead of the launch of the new services on Monday.
The firm is undercutting Cardiff's other bus services on price to try to entice people who rarely take the bus.
It later said in a statement on Monday afternoon: "In view of the reaction to our bus advertising today we wish to set out our position:
"Firstly we have stated that our objectives have been to make catching the bus attractive to the younger generation. We therefore developed an internal advertising campaign featuring males and females to hold boards to promote the cost of our daily tickets.
"The slogan of ‘ride me all day for £3’ whilst being a little tongue in cheek was in no way intended to cause offence to either men or women and, if the advert has done so then we apologise unreservedly. There has certainly been no intention to objectify either men or women.
"Given the volume of negativity received we have decided to remove the pictures from the back of the buses within the next 24 hours."
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