Transport for London has banned a new Trinity Mirror poster campaign from London’s Underground network.
The poster, which shows a female model in a bath with her elbows poking out, is a parody of The Sun’s continuing use of topless models on its Page 3.
The Daily Mirror ran the ad across the entirety of its own page 3 today.
Trinity Mirror’s marketing push accompanied a redesign of the Sunday and Daily Mirror unveiled this weekend. The “seven-figure” campaign is intended to reposition the papers as “the intelligent tabloid”.
The ad featuring the woman has been designed to initially look like she is exposing bare breasts. It is accompanied by the hashtag #Madeuthink and the strapline: “We’re not like other tabloids”.
The Mirror said that the new campaign was its first major marketing push for 10 years.
Editor-in-chief Lloyd Embley said last week: “There's one thing which really makes the Mirror stand out from the tabloid crowd, we have a brain and so do our readers. And that's the message we're driving home here.”
The poster is one in a series that will form part of Trinity Mirror's campaign, along with TV ads due to run from this Saturday.
A Mirror source said of the campaign: "It embodies all of the things we're doing [with the paper]."
The campaign comes as News UK revamped its Sun on Sunday a week ago, installing Victoria Newton as editor and signing former Mirror stalwart Tony Parsons as a new columnist.
News UK has repeatedly stood by its use of topless models on Page 3 of The Sun, although they do not feature in The Sun on Sunday. Despite growing pressure from the No More Page 3 campaign, both editor David Dinsmore and News UK chief executive Mike Darcey have backed the feature, claiming the majority of Sun readers are in favour of it.
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