A large retailer in Belgium opens its summer campaign with a woman in a burkini
Bol.com's summer advertising shows the cultural change that Europe is experiencing. In Belgium, the religious submission of the female body is now a friendly, modern, inclusive and refreshing commercial.
bolt.com's burkini campaign in Belgium
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A summer advertising campaign seen in Belgium perfectly captures the current European cultural moment: A smiling woman with a surfboard, wearing a burkini.. The advertisement appears on street-side billboards with the slogan “The Summer Splash Shop”. The advert is from bol.com, one of the largest online retailers in the Netherlands and Belgium, competing directly with Amazon.
The photograph encapsulates all the codes of friendly advertising: yellow colour, a smile, surfing, holidays and diversity. The burkini does not appear as a religious symbol, but as a modern, appealing and fully normalised option.a. The bol.com campaign not only sells summer products, it also sells an idea of normality: the religious coverage of the female body turned into a holiday postcard.
Bol.com presents submission as diversity
The burkini originates from a very specific religious conception: the idea that a woman's body must be covered even in a leisure, sports and water environment. For this reason, according to the Dutch medium Latest news, The campaign has sparked controversy in Belgium: groups opposed to Islamisation have criticised a major brand for using the burkini as the friendly face of a summer campaign.
In Belgium and the Netherlands, the debate over the burkini is not new. In recent years, various municipalities, swimming pools and public spaces have seen discussions about whether this item should be allowed or restricted in certain facilities. Now, the novelty is that it has appeared as part of a major platform's summer marketing campaign.
Activists boycott the burkini campaign
The campaign has not remained merely a controversy on social media. Activists from the surrounding area… Cities Against Islamisation “Cities Against Islamisation” have publicly denounced the advert and have called for Boycott against bol.com. In one of the circulated actions, a woman appears in front of the bus shelter and sticks a protest poster over the burkini advert itself.
The added poster shows a woman wearing a niqab and the message in Dutch. “Islam can harm your freedom.”, which can be translated as “Islam can harm your freedom.”. In this way, the activists contrast the campaign's original image—a smiling woman in a burkini presented as a summer scene—with an explicit denunciation of political Islam and the loss of freedoms.
The protest has been directed against bol.com for having incorporated the burkini into a holiday marketing campaign. Activists believe the brand normalises religious attire associated with covering the female body and presents it as a friendly, modern and inclusive image. For this reason, they are calling for people to stop shopping on the platform and to turn the case into a public denunciation.
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