Safe and sexy

Actually, Andreas Scheuer wanted to help the bicycle helmet with a candidate of Germany's Next Top Model to more popularity. Now the Minister of Transport is confronted with the accusation that the advertising campaign is sexist.

Perhaps Federal Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer has seen this commercial so yes, as he ran several years ago more often on television: Board meeting of kriselnden 08/15 Bank. Many older men in gray suits, only one woman in the round. "We distribute colorful flags," says one of the men. The woman gets up and makes a counterproposal: personal advice, free ATMs everywhere and for the customers always a branch nearby. When the woman enumerates what that would cost, the boss intervenes and decides: "We'll do it with the flags!".

The spot satirizes small-mindedness, discouragement, hostility to innovation. All things that Andreas Scheuer points far from. After all, he's not one of those boring dusty bureaucrats. He is, as he told these days, one of those who used to want to sit in the back of the bus, the "Cool". Sure, it's not going so well right now. He is too nice to the auto companies, they say. His reasoning against the speed limit on motorways slipped into the absurd. And then there's the train, which is always late.

But now, finally, there is a winner theme: a campaign for wearing bicycle helmets. No one can have anything against that.

And because they are incredibly creative in the Ministry of Transport and really close to the young target group, they are doing something completely new this time, quite different. No boring accident statistics. No policeman explaining what can happen without a helmet, no! They hire a candidate from Germany's Next Top Model for the campaign. Millions of people see GNTM, as connoisseurs say. So the campaign will go off like a rocket.

Just this insanity slogan: "Looks like shit, but saves my life" looks like shit, but saves my life. So the bicycle helmet. Andreas Scheuer is there live when the first posters of the campaign come out of the printer. You can see this on Twitter. Scheuer says: "The slogan may not really fit the usual German government." That's right. He recalls, for example, the slogan on the poster on which Karl Lagerfeld campaigned for a reflective safety vest in 2008. "She's yellow, she's ugly, she does not fit, but she can save her life."

A video of the image now shows footage from "Heidi Meeeeeedchen", model Alicija is seen at the photo shoot with a star photographer in London. "She will do a fantastic job," says a staff member from the GNTM team. And then she does. Scene 1: The model is leaning against the window, supporting himself with his elbow on the window frame, white, sleeveless T-shirt - helmet in blue-black. Scene 2: The model is relaxing on the bed, the lascivious gaze is called that. Black lace bustier, helmet in blue-yellow.

If the ministry speakers knew that their campaign was being implemented that way, maybe they would have thought it over again. The question is: could not they have thought it? After all, here Heidi Klum made a spot for security. Although no one on Twitter so far writes anything about "safe sex": There are now a few hostile critics who apparently do not understand the art.

The posts on Twitter, for example, lift selfies, thickly packed with a winter jacket, scarf and towel in front of the face. "Thank god, the lingerie Radlsaion is finally starting again," it says. Throw the Department of Transportation even sexism. Ignore the attempt to make the aesthetically questionable bicycle helmet more popular.

The most accurate sentence on the subject arguably speaks of the British star photographer: "It's a strange combination of wearing a helmet and being sexy".