'Offensive' stalker ad wiped out after online outrage

A Chinese video advertisement for make-up wipes that linked a woman's appearance to the likelihood of assault has been taken down after a backlash over "victim-blaming."

The ad, released last week by cotton products maker Purcotton, showed a woman walking home at night followed by a male stalker.

As he gains on her, she removes her make-up using wipes and transforms into a man, scaring off the stalker.

It was widely panned on social media, with users on Weibo complaining it made light of a serious issue and vowing a brand boycott.

One wrote: "Making an advert out of a woman being stalked? This is a crime." Those remarks attracted more than 50,000 likes.

The company has now apologized twice, though it initially defended the ad as a "creative" concept. "To use women's worst fears and pain as the subject of an advert and then defend it loudly - do you even have a brain?" read another comment.

Facing a PR disaster, Purcotton said on Friday it attached "high importance" to the issue, and "we deeply apologize and will immediately take down the video."

But the furor did not abate and Purcotton issued a longer apology on Monday.

Even state media weighed in, with the newspaper of the All-China Women's Federation declaring that the ad "smears the victim and is full of prejudice, malice and ignorance."

The brand, owned by Winner Medical Group, operates over 240 stores across China, selling a variety of family products.

It is the latest firm to be ensnared as more Chinese social media users call out ads deemed sexist in recent years.

Taiwanese chain RT-Mart apologized in November after commentators accused it of "fat-shaming" customers. Plus-sized women's clothes in its China stores were labelled "rotten" and "extra rotten" while small and medium sizes were "skinny" and "beautiful."

And an Audi ad in 2017 was hit for showing a bride being checked at the aisle by her future mother-in-law, which drew comparisons to inspecting livestock.