‘Sleazy’ Toorak billboard advertising housing development draws criticism from locals

A billboard using a photograph taken by a renowned Melbourne photographer to promote a high-society property development has been slammed by locals who have labelled it ‘misogynistic’.

High-society property developers Luke McKie and Rick Gronow received many complaints about their advertisement.

A billboard that used a photograph by late, renowned Melbourne photographer Rennie Ellis to spruik a luxury Toorak property development was taken down after passers-by complained it was “sleazy, salacious, and clearly misogynistic”.

High-society property developer Piper Orchard used the 1976 photo of a woman leaning over a vintage Ferrari, exposing her underwear, to advertise its Toorak Village development.

But the company, which is owned by duo Luke McKie and Rick Gronow, was the target of a string of complaints to the advertising watchdog, Ad Standards Australia, about the Toorak Rd billboard.

High-society property developers Luke McKie and Rick Gronow run Orchard Piper in Melbourne.

“This image clearly objectifies women as sexual objects of wealthy men,” one of the complaints said.

“It is sleazy, salacious and clearly misogynistic.”

“It belongs in the dark ages of the 70s where women were scantily clad and draped over luxury cars that clearly only men could afford.”

Another complaint lodged with the watchdog described the photo as “degrading and exploitative”.

“This misogynistic image needs to be removed, in the same way that a racist image would be removed.”

Piper Orchard told the advertising watchdog the photo was used as part of “very much a co-ordinated campaign which sought to show the former glamour of Toorak Village”.

The developer also said it took the billboard down “as soon as we heard there was offence taken”.

Locals made complaints to the advertising watchdog, which was divided over whether the image was discriminatory.

But it said it then fielded “numerous phone calls, emails and messages of people noting their dismay and questioning why we would remove such an iconic image of the era”.

The photo, entitled “Dino Ferrari, Toorak Road 1976” is in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, where curators of a 2008 exhibition of Ellis’s work described him as being “renowned for his candid documentary images of contemporary Australian life”.

The photo is considered among Ellis’s most iconic photographs.

The Ad Standards adjudication panel was divided over whether the image was discriminatory, but a majority of the panel said the developer had inappropriately used the woman as a “sexualised object to draw attention to the sign”.

The panel also said the focus on the woman’s underwear was “not relevant to the product being promoted” and the photo “dehumanised her” by focusing on her body.

The panel also ruled the advertisement did not treat sex, sexuality and nudity “with sensitivity”.

Ellis, who died unexpectedly in 2003, is also the subject of an exhibition at the State Library, which holds a large collection of his photographs.