The Burnett Foundation, formerly the New Zealand AIDS Foundation, funded the posters to raise awareness of gay and bisexual sexuality education.

However, they quickly racked up 86 complaints to the address Advertising Standards Authority.

“Disgusting ad”

“I want the posters promoting anal sex outside Birkdale Dairy removed immediately. This is a disgusting ad to have in a prime location where young children come to a dairy,” one complaint said.

“This ad is so incredibly inappropriate to be shown for children to see. It directs them to pornographic material on the Burnett Foundation website.

Other complainants were concerned that the ads seemed more like a “how to” than an education on safe sex practices, and that they were sexualized for no reason.

Foundation chief executive Joe Rich told NZME the ads were designed to target gay, bisexual and MSM New Zealanders and fill a gap in sex education.

People in these groups are 348 times more likely to get HIV than others, 108 times more likely to get syphilis and 44 times more likely to get gonorrhea, the foundation claims.

He believed the complaints stemmed from a targeted hate campaign.

“Many of the complainants were clearly homophobic and demonstrated a personal belief that public health messages should not be directed at certain communities with some of the very real and important issues surrounding their health and well-being,” he said.

“We need to normalize sex positivity in the public sphere. We know unequivocally from international evidence and programs that by promoting pleasure as a result of practicing positive sexual health habits, you achieve greater behavior change towards better health outcomes.”

Christian lobby group Family First posted a photo of the posters on Facebook in September, telling its followers “You know what to do”, accompanied by the Advertising Standards Authority’s email address.

Its founder Bob McCoskrie told NZME the ads were “perverted” and should not be shown in front of families or children.

“The AIDS Foundation has just been tone deaf in terms of where and who they are targeting,” he said.

“I think any big poster promoting anal sex outside a dairy is a turn-off and I think most people would agree with that.”

McCoskrie said the posters were explicit and would also have been challenged if they promoted safe heterosexual sex.

Bishop Brian Tamaki, founder of the Church of Destiny, also took issue with the ads and posted on X labeling them “pure filth”.

He told NZME a complaint had been made to the authority on behalf of his congregation.

“At this level of sexual content, I don’t agree that it should be out in the city, on windows and shop windows and nearby dairies, where children can see it.

“It’s not the kind of content kids should be exposed to so early in life.”

Were they offensive?

The Burnett Foundation said in response that the campaign was not aimed at children and that it carefully selected placements outside of school exclusion zones and took place during the school holidays.

However, there was only one instance where the ad was mistakenly placed in one of these exclusion zones. He had been removed from the media company that owned the space.

In a recently published ruling, the authority ordered the Burnett Foundation to remove the ads and stop using them.

“The majority of the Complaints Board said the ad was likely to cause serious offence. This is due to the fact that both posters contained references to sexual activities,” the authority’s ruling states.

A majority of the board that reviewed the complaints agreed that it was inappropriate for “such provocative, sexually explicit text and images” to be displayed to the public and that the cartoon-like images and bright colors could have attracted children.

A minority of the board disagreed and said the ads did not meet the threshold of causing widespread offense and that the posters conveyed an important public health message. That minority also noted that children who saw them would have been unlikely to understand the sexual innuendo.

However, the board ultimately found the ad to be socially irresponsible and breached the Advertising Code.

Earlier this year, another ad campaign by the foundation urged men to book a discreet HIV test through its website, alongside photos of topless men.

The ads garnered eight complaints that the posters were overtly sexual, but the authority did not order their removal.

Jeremy Wilkinson is an Open Justice reporter based in Manawatū covering courts and justice issues with an interest in the courts. He has been a journalist for almost a decade and has been working for NZME since 2022.