This is pretty jokes. Thanks to Gav for alerting me to it. Basically, for some unknown reason an ad company called JWT which is part of the WPP (no, I got no idea what either of those two stand for but they sure do sound important don’t they?) thought it would be a good idea to make an advert for the Ford Figo (LOL who the hell came up with that name?) that depicted a cartoon of former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi driving the car with three tied up women in the back. The tagline to the advert read ‘Leave your worries behind with Figo’s extra large boot.’ Pretty unbelievable huh? You can check out that advert below:

☛ More Italy: Italian Chav Rave Party 

In case you don’t understand any of the references (highly possible as you’re reading Sick Chirpse and not The Guardian or something so you might not exactly be clued up on Italian politics, forgive me if I’ve underestimated you though) Berlusconi was a notorious slutbag when he was Prime Minister, and used to have a bunch of sex orgies that he called ‘bunga bunga’ parties.

Pictures from one such party revealed an Italian reality TV star named Barbara Guerra – who has also been a girlfriend of Mario Balotelli’s – dressed up in a sexy policewoman’s outfit and she is quite clearly depicted in the back of this vehicle. The other girl is also quite clearly supposed to resemble Ruby The Heart Stealer – a 17 year old girl that Berlusconi is alleged to have paid for sex a bunch of times and is currently the subject of an ongoing trial that could possibly send Berlusconi to prison for 15 years for soliciting a minor for sex.

So I mean you see why this advert makes sense – Berlusconi has a bunch of huge problems, but the Figo’s boot is so big that it can fit all of them inside it. Perfect. But also HORRIFICALLY POLITICALLY INCORRECT. As well I find it kind of bizarre that anyone from India would really know that much about Berlusconi or his problems? I mean is he a big deal over there? Here’s a picture of Barbara Guerra at one of his ‘bunga bunga’ parties while you think about that.

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To be honest the only mass market I could see this working in is Italy, but Berlusconi has so much power, money and influence there I couldn’t see it taking off before it was completely shut down and the people who initiated it were disappeared. I meant to say ‘were disappeared’ too before anyone gets crotchety. The ad was only uploaded onto some site in India called Ads Of The World so it could quite easily have been set up for Italy or another country, it just so happens that it was uploaded in India. Whoops.

Ford and WPP both sought to distance themselves from the advert by both issuing really wishy washy statements trying to absolve themselves of any blame. First up we have Ford: ‘It should have never happened. The advert has been taken down. Together with our partners, we are reviewing approval and oversight processes to help ensure nothing like this ever happens again.’ I’m sure all their clients are suitably reassured after that.

WPP’s is slightly better but still completely lame: ‘This advert is distasteful and contrary to the standard of professionalism and decency within WPP group. These were never intended for paid publication and should never have been created, let alone uploaded to the internet. This was the result of individuals acting without proper oversight and appropriate actions have been taken within the agency where they work to deal with the situation.’ Again, great.

This is particualrly funny at the moment because Italian-Indian relations are apparently at an all time low due to the fact that two Italian marines have been accused of shooting dead two Indian farmers off the coast of Kerala for pretty much no reason, and diplomatic tensions have been growing for weeks over the potential resolution to this issue. I guess there’s nothing like printing massively offensive cartoons of the other country’s Prime Minister when something like that’s going on to resolve the situation, huh? Oh wait.

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