Clothing store chain appealing to Valley Metro over 'explicit' ads

The CEO of the retailer behind an ad that Valley Metro deemed too "sexually explicit" to run on the light rail last week now plans to appeal to the Valley Metro Board of Directors to get the ad approved.

The ad for the men's consignment store Well Suited shows a boot and reads "Make A Booty Call." Ann Siner, founder of My Sister's Closet, My Sister's Attic and Well Suited, will appeal for that ad to run and present the board with an alternative ad that shows a picture of a dress tie and reads "Get Tied Up."

On Friday, Siner said she had pulled the ad campaign and that if Valley Metro wouldn't accept all of the ads, they would get none. By Monday afternoon, Siner had struck a more conciliatory tone, saying the retailer had come up with an alternative ad but still plans to appeal Valley Metro's original decision.

Of four ads that were called into question for their sexually explicit nature, Valley Metro would originally only accept one ad that depicted a shoe and read "Sell Your Sole." Last Friday, the board approved two of the other three ads -- one showing a chest of drawers that read 'Buy A Bigger Chest" and one showing a night stand that read "Wanted: One Night Stand."

The "booty call" ad was the only one Valley Metro would not accept. In a letter to Siner, Valley Metro CEO Stephen Banta said references to chests, night stands and shoe soles have remote sexual innuendo if any, but the "booty call" ad was not appropriate for display on a "community asset."

"There are very few ways to interpret the phrase 'booty call,'" Banta said in the letter. "It is sexually explicit to most everyone."

The ads were up on the light rail for two days before someone complained about them. Siner said she wasn't notified the ads were down until two weeks after they had been pulled from the light rail.

All four of the ads are up on billboards around the Valley and on Facebook ads. She said the "booty call" ad has been up for years in Arizona and California.

THE ADS

She said the contract for the ads on the light rail was for $60,000 and that the city of Phoenix would have received about 60 percent of that. She said it cost $10,000 to remove the ads and will cost another $10,000 to put them back up. None of that money was her expense, she said.

Siner will meet with the board May 21. She said it doesn't do any good if she can't advertise all of the concepts and all of the stores.

"We're really willing to work and cooperate with them," she said.

The ads were created by Decibel Blue, a Tempe-based marketing agency. Siner said the package is a fun concept, and the alternative "tie" ad will make people smile in the same way as the others.

If approved, Siner said she wants to wait until September to run the ads because the summer is a rough time for business.