Billboards - promoting vulgarity?

Outdoor advertising is an integral part of our media industry. We see hundreds of billboards daily that leave a huge influence on our society. A billboard is one of the best and effective way of promoting a product or service. In Karachi, the ads on these billboards range from being highly creative and innovative to highly vulgar and seductive. Even before summers started, the entire city was bombarded with lawn billboards. You could see a lawn billboard literally on every single mile.

Most of these billboards showed only pretty faces, cleavages and indecent advertising. What I saw in these billboards was models lying on sofas or beds or sitting in an immoral posture. The main thing that was to be advertised i.e. lawn, was not even visible in majority of the billboards.  After looking at these billboards, I wonder whether they are selling lawn or women. Recently, I saw a billboard of Veet at Do Talwar, in which Katrina Kaif is sitting with a purple dress revealing her naked legs and arms. This vulgarity is ruining the minds of young children who pass by these billboards daily in the morning and afternoon when they are on their way and back from school.

There are a large number of such types of billboards that I find offensive and immoral such as the slice or lux billboard or the sanitary napkins billboards. Even the unknown and infamous model in Maaza Mango’s billboard has made a seductive pose which I find disgusting! What does seductiveness or obscenity has to do with a brand of juice? These billboards with obscene pictures of models not only distract the driver and pedestrians but are also a cause of majority of accidents happening in the city.  

Outdoor advertising should have some cultural, social and religious boundaries. Vulgar and obscene ads are only helping in polluting the minds and thought process of our children. There should be more creativity and less vulgarity in our billboards. An ad for a juice brand can be made without using a seductive or lustful pose. There should be a censor board for outdoor advertising, like there is for movies and all, so that only those ads are put up that are ethical and do not harm anybodys moral values. Billboards should be made keeping in mind the fact that we live in a society where cultural norms and values are given a high importance.