JINHA

ISTANBUL – After women criticized Turkey's Doğadan tea company for a sexist green tea advertisement, the company pulled the ad and apologized yesterday.

The ad asks the question "what do women want?" followed by a breathless list of stereotypes: bags, shoes, flowers, more shoes. At the end of the ad, the male announcer, exhausted, advertises Doğadan green tea as relaxing.Women started a signature campaign against the ad.

A version of the video appeared, subtitled with "what women really want"—including for men not to tell them what they want, encourage a view of women as consumers or make sexist advertisements. Within three days, the campaign succeeded in getting the ad pulled.

"The comments on social media on the campaign that we designed to spread the word about our new product deeply saddened us," said the company in its apology statement. "We want to sincerely announce that we did not set out with the goal being discussed. For this reason and because we have understood the sensitivities of you, our valued costumers, we have removed the video from broadcast."

(fk/cm)