Shanghai plans to set up a citizen advisory panel to prevent advertisers from erecting billboards featuring scantily clad women and other images, which have the potential to offend. 

The move follows a series of complaints since the end of last month over a huge billboard in the Xujiahui area displaying the bare thigh of a Hong Kong pop star selling skin-care products.

The Shanghai-based www.eastday.com reported on March 20 repeated public complaints about an advertisement billboard featuring the bare thigh of the famous actress Li Caihua.

The billboard was removed after authorities discovered that the space had been approved for a public service advertisement but a switch had taken place. 

To prevent such problems in the future the Shanghai Industrial and Commercial Administrative Bureau is preparing to set up a council including residents, legal experts and industry representatives this year to weed out potentially offensive and misleading advertisements.

"It's sometimes difficult to decide whether the content is improper because different people have different standards," said the bureau's advertisement division chief, Miao Jun.

State regulations require that female images used in advertising must be "healthy and positive" and help foster sound morals among young people -- rules that are somewhat vague.

More rigid internal guidelines existed in the industry in the 1990s. They prohibited women shown in ads from wearing skirts or shorts above the knee. But insiders said the rules are seldom enforced today as society had become more open-minded.

In most cases bureaucrats make individual judgments about whether an image will offend the public.

Ads that may offend public taste are not always sexually suggestive. In a case last year a little boy in Putuo District was frightened by a cosmetics ad on TV, which featured a woman who appeared to zip off her skin. The advertisement gave the boy nightmares and his mother complained to the consumer commission but to no avail.

Xu Hong, director of the Shanghai Advertisement Monitoring Center, said that while some complaints had been raised offensive advertising was not a significant problem.

The advisory council could make it even less of a problem.

The group will be used to arbitrate on questionable material. It will also help authorities make judgments about exaggerated claims and misleading statements in advertising for medical services and equipment and health tonics.

(Shanghai Daily April 6, 2006)