A BILLBOARD poster featuring scantily-clad women has been criticised after it appeared near a mosque in Bury.
The advert showed four models with their backs to the camera, wearing only G-strings and high heels. It also contained the slogan: "It's string time."
The poster, for Sloggi underwear, prompted two complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) after it was put up near two mosques in Rochdale Road in Bury, and near another in Harehills Road, Leeds, West Yorkshire.
Wiltshire-based Triumph International, which owns the Sloggi brand, said it always told its contractors to avoid using poster sites near mosques.
The ASA ruled the advert was unlikely to cause serious offence in the main.
However the "nakedness shown in the poster" could offend Muslims if placed near a mosque as it was a place of worship, the watchdog said.
It told Triumph International to "take more care with the placing of similar posters" in future.
The ASA said the complaint was the first it had upheld about a poster being offensive because it appeared outside a place of worship.
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