Australian based camper van rental company, Wicked Campers, raise eyebrows with their ‘colourful’, literally and figuratively, rental vans
The company, which targets backpackers on a budget, is known for its eye-catching vans -undoubtedly designed to provoke a reaction. The company has come under considerable heat in the past several years because of the images and slogans portrayed on their vans.
Sydney mother, Paula Orbea, has started an online petition to bring attention to the company’s vans and to ‘eliminate misogynistic and degrading slogans and imagery’. This petition was prompted by Orbea’s 11-year-old daughter reading the slogan: ‘In every princess, there’s a little slut who wants to try it just once’ on the back of a Wicked Camper van. Other such slogans include, ‘They call it PMS because mad cow disease was taken’ and ‘A wife: an attachment you screw on the bed to get the housework done…’ The petition has already gained over 127,000 signatures.
This is not the first time that the Brisbane based company has attracted negative attention. In 2008, the company was dubbed racist for displaying the slogan, ‘Save a whale – harpoon a Jap’ and in 2012, ‘Its better 2 be black than gay, cos u don’t have to tell your parents…’
Austrailia’s Advertising Standards Bureau has previously lodged complaints about the hire company for breaching various sections of the code of ethics in relation to ‘discriminatory and exploitative and degrading material’ and ‘community standards of health and safety , particularly drug use’ to which Wicked Campers did not respond.
Clearly designed to shock, these vans have achieved their goal by provoking such a strong reaction. It begs the question, should these offensive vans simply be ignored on the grounds of freedom of speech or should action be taken?
