Adverts are generally nothing but mind polluting annoyances, but on occasion one that just defies all sense of good taste is hilariously dreadful enough to be worth standing in front of gazing open-mouthed at.

So what do we imagine the image to the right is an advert for? Guesses ranging from slightly extreme safety warnings for children not to talk to strangers to a further encroachment of the politco-racist BNP's "foreigners are mostly paedophiles" campaign we saw a while ago would both be reasonable answers.

In actuality, it's an ad campaign for New Zealand's Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) suggesting that responsible cat owners should have them neutered. It is the first time that the Poorhouse has seen an advertising campaign which relied on making a pun of the phrase "kiddy fiddling" - in this case by making the point that we must stop the "kitty fiddling" by desexing all pet cats.

Apparently New Zealand is getting overrun by cats; SPCA has had to kill over 6,000 unwanted cats within the last year. Two students on an advertising course made the ad pitch to the SPCA who decided it was indeed somewhat striking and stuck up 100 posters featuring it around South Auckland.

Unsurprisingly it's generated complaints. Katherine McPhillips of Auckland's Sexual Abuse HELP foundation reckons it trivialises sex abuse. Denise Ritchie from Stop Demand somewhat dramatically says "To use the rape of baby girls as an attention-grabbing stunt for de-sexing pets...shows an extraordinary lack of insight and sensitivity...".

The SPCA simply claims it didn't mean to offend anyone, saying "It would be very sad if people who've undergone some sort of sexual abuse are traumatised by this", but feels stopping the killing thousands of cats a year is a cause worth "playing hardball" for.

They say they will take them down if there is great public outcry, but in the mean time chances are that they have done really quite well in terms publicising the issue if nothing else.

(Thanks to Advertising For Peanuts for (unknowingly) supplying the accompanying illustration. The Poor-budget does not stretch to taking trans-world flights to take pictures of funny signs.)