Australia's Gold Coast Tourism Board has removed an image from a campaign website targeting the gay community because it didn’t want its marketing strategy “reduced to a crotch shot”.
Gold Coast Tourism (GCT) said it will no longer use the image of a man wearing tight white beach shorts because it doesn't want its latest campaign "reduced to a crotch shot".
It had publicised the picture on the gaygoldcoast.com.au website - next to the line ‘Check out our impressive packages’ - in order to target the so-called "pink dollar".
But after the picture became the focus of stories on several mainstream media sites, such as the ABC and the Gold Coast Bulletin, the group decided it can do without it.
"That image did not represent the tone and style were were going for in our campaign, which is part of carefully planned niche marketing strategy that has been two years in development," GCT director of communications and marketing services, Ben Pole, told the Mumbrella website.
"The image was used as a lead image in news stories about our campaign, which we think is an incorrect interpretation of our marketing strategy. We didn’t want that image reducing our marketing strategy to a crotch shot. So we have removed it from our site," he said.
"Media interest is good," Mr Pole added. "But we didn’t want all our hard work to be sensationalised."
