The Guardian reports that Steel Panthers posters promoting the "Balls Out" album are banned for being "overtly sexual". The ASA received four complaints about the poster which shows a barely dressed woman caressing herself while holding a pair of silver balls.
The record label Universal Island used the "we're mocking stuff from the 80s" defense and said that the ads were meant to "poke fun at the ridiculousness of the attitude to women, outfits and music in that [1980s] era".
They also pointed out that the posters are meant to be "ludicrously over the top and not meant to undermine women". Cliff notes: "c'mon, we're only joking".

This ad, above, is the self-banned ad of the week from the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board campaign - see the rest on facebook - that shows the dark side of what happens when you drink too much. You might end up in fights, hanging out with the "porcelain prince" all evening, have condoms break on you, cheat on your boyfriend or... get raped. From the image showing a women lying on what may be a bathroom floor the viewer will probably conclude that when you're unconscious and can't actually say no, rape is your fault. The copy on the campaign website even went so far to blame the victims friends. Now it's everyones fault. Except the rapists, of course.

Hold up! Duke Nukem forever ad has been banned from pre-11pm TV. Why? The ASA finds the game-animated pole-dancing strippers "too explicit" for prime time. What about the pixelated peeing? Pixelated peeing has got to be worse, no? I mean an animated game-character with biological functions is just sick. ;P What kind of warped mind thinks that sort of thing up?

There's a bit of a catfight between the ASA Ireland and the ISPCC Ireland right now. The ASA upheld a complaint against the ISPCC's "when I grow up" on the grounds of - wait for it - gender inequality. Yes, the real problem in this world clearly is that the only adult abusing the little boy in the ad is his father, step father, uncle or other male person. Who complained about that?

Complainants objected to the advertisement on the basis that it was unbalanced in its treatment of the subject of abuse in the home. The advertisement only depicted a male as being the aggressor and the complainants considered this to be unbalanced.

Michael Lee Johnson explains:

I recently ran a Google+ advertisement on Facebook that got all of my campaigns suspended. - Great.
The message from Failbook said the following:
Your account has been disabled. All of your adverts have been stopped and should not be run again on the site under any circumstances. Generally, we disable an account if too many of its adverts violate our Terms of Use or Advertising guidelines. Unfortunately we cannot provide you with the specific violations that have been deemed abusive. Please review our Terms of Use and Advertising guidelines if you have any further questions.
P.S; Facebook - You Suck.

Interesting. What part of the TOS did a Google+ ad break, do you think?

Update Julio Fernandez played internet-detective and went on a string to find out. He set up a similarly worded ad on Facebook and just had it approved.

This is under "banned" though, surprise, it wasn't! When the Norwegian 'dating' company Victoria Milan launched in the Swedish market advertising "make life exiting, have an affair" it was quickly dubbed the "cheaters site" and had people talking everywhere. Swedes, mostly known for topless sunbathing and bikini teams around the world (I know that makes no sense) were all shocked by the idea, and a whopping 206 individual complaints arrived at RO (The advertising ombudsmans) offices demanding that the campaign be stopped for moral reasons as it encouraged infidelity.

A Cadbury's ad with the line "Move over Naomi, there's a new diva in town" references the supermodel Naomi Campbell's infamous "diva"-style tantrums, but Naomi feels certain it's the color of her skin that's described as she says to the Independent.

"I am shocked. It's upsetting to be described as chocolate, not just for me, but for all black women and black people. I do not find any humour in this. It is insulting and hurtful."

In the least surprising bit of news this week, Adfreak reports: "Manwich ads yanked for slapping girly men. The ads which were on youtube last week have been pulled from there, after ConAgra received complaints. The petition at Change.org argues: "Violence against gender non conforming men and women is a serious problem in our country and should not be used for lazy jokes in advertising. Every year thousands of men and women are victims of hate crimes because of their perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. This commercial series glorifies those crimes."

It's only been a month since the pregnant nun munching on ice-cream was pulled, now the latest Antonio Federici meets the banhammer. Seems this was their strategy all along.

The ad which only ran in Look magazine, showed two priests in full robes eating from a tub of ice cream 'in a seductive pose as if they were about to kiss passionately', the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said. Six complaints later, presto - banned.

Defending the ad, the ice-cream company said it did not mock Catholicism but 'reflected the grave troubles they considered affected the Catholic Church'.

It's been probably six months since the last advertising offense toward Catholics, but we're at it again reports AP. The Antonio Federici brand has a posted with a heavily pregnant nun standing in a church holding a tub of ice cream and a spoon, with the strap lines declaring "Immaculately conceived" and "Ice cream is our religion".

The ASA says they've received ten complaints from people who said the ad offended christians.

Jared Hess, of Napoleon Dynamite fame ponders if racism is the reason these ads he directed were pulled. In the ads a jheri-curled soul singer is seen serenading a pig and a funnel cake, in a rather over the top fashion. The Utah State Fair Board members have said the ads just "weren't right." Some said they were offensive.

The Utah State Fair Board decided to pull the TV ads when some board members felt they had "sexual undertones" and were "over the top." But Hess says he believes it was only because the actor is black.

The actor in the ad, Markus T. Boddie says he doesn't believe the decision was racially motivated, but he can't say for sure.

Daft ad film "ban" of the week, Comviq has decided to withdraw their new film "Choir" because viewers have taken offense at what they perceive is a film glorifying bullying, rather than a homage to another film.

Americans like their apple pie, meanwhile Swedes like their sandwhiches covered in eggs. On top of other eggs. It's eggtastic. In Swedish when we say "kaviar", which is caviar, we mean the stuff that comes in tubes and is generously spread on big sandwiches first. For real.

So while american kids eat peanutbutter and jelly on wonderbread, Swedish kids munch on fishroe-paste on hardboiled eggs for a snack. The super-Swedish spread is highly popular, and the leading brand is Kalles, who even make striped variations of the tubed spread with other flavors mixed in, like the banana-and-fishroe flavor. I am so not kidding!

The ASA have banned the ad for the Anti-Terrorist Hotline on the ground it is seriously offensive and makes an undue appeal to fear - thems my cliff notes kids, you can read the full verdict under the link. Radio adverts that make "He likes to keep himself to himself" seem like insta-terrorists are indeed very creepy, and this particular example crossed a line - probably because most UK men who like to keep to themselves recognized their own behavior. I'm a bit miffed there's no hotline for me to call regarding the man at the end of the street here, who has parties at all hours, pays by credit card because he never has any money and in is in perpetual debt, never draws the blind because he hopes to flaunt his wiggly bits to teenage girls who pass by on the local bus route.

A woman in Norrköping has reported the Jarlsberg tv-show bumper idents to the Consumer Ombudsman for their "unpleasant" tagline: "the taste is in the holes."

First of all, it's misleading, the taste can't be in the holes. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized how unpleasant it was.

She elaborates: "I felt provoked. It felt like it was alluding to something sexual. Then I got angry. One wonders what sort of society we live in with this kind of attitude toward women."

She's not the only one with her mind firmly in the gutter. There's even facebook groups dedicated to snickering at how "dirty" the tagline is. There's blogposts musing on how the tagline might have been created by an intern, others go straight to the point that holes "probably taste like fish", and newspaper journalists are wondering if those who like tasteful cheese might be able to buy a bag full of holes. (Great idea, marketing - get on that stat!) It's currently the most discussed piece of news at aftonbladets bloggportal.

At Aftonbladet the Jarlsberg cheese Managing Director Magnus Ekstrand defends the ads, and find it being pigeon holed as a sexist ad rather odd. "Our cheese has more unique holes than any other cheese. Somewhere there, she chooses to form associations to something which we don't associate to."

Copywriters get to have final word on how exactly something should be said in any given ad, that is until the ASA listens to it. This British Gas advert which aired in December last year has been banned for "Implying that British Gas would attend same day call-outs, even over Christmas". The phrasing that set complaints off was : "You can reach us every day. Even over Christmas.", in combo with a cute animated British Gas car pulling up to help the house owner in the ad with the broken boiler.
British gas disputed the complaint, saying that they wanted the ad to show that they deal with queries every day, even on christmas - thing is, the british gas truck doesn't show up quite as fast as the ad implies.

RO, a.k.a the ReklamOmbudsman in Sweden have decided to ban the Arvika Festival ad campaign, even if Arvika Festival couldn't get anyone to air it on TV in the first place. The film shows a young woman saying hi to the camera, apparently naked, and she then proceeds to masturbate. It ends on a super stating: "7 months away, get ready, 15-17 July 2010"

I've never quite understood the strategy of selling a beer on being "cold" (which would be my job to keep it so) rather than tasty, but everyone knows that an ice-cold beer at the height of summer is when lagers are at their best. So Spendrups did an ad with the headline "have a really cold summer", suggesting cold beer on hot days. They've now been reprimanded for having the audacity suggesting that beer should be drunk at all, forget seeing anything as advanced as the Jupiler Ice Beer poster here in Sweden.

This is the offending Spendrups ad that ran last summer. Shocking, isn't it?

Banned ad of the week, last years "Tombola Bingo" advert where a british upper class (and white) bloke sits on the beach in his tuxedo, having every word he says repeated in song by a hawaiian shirt clad ukelele playing local (thus, a black man). Two people complained that it presented a negative racial stereotype. Only one whined that it seemed to try and do the song-funny of "Real American heroes" and failing (me).

The ASA considered that the relationship between the two characters "was defined as the power of the white man over the black man", because of the difference in their dress and the way the black man was portrayed as less intelligent in that he repeated everything the white man said, even "Thank you, Tito".

from brandrepublic

I'm glad it was banned, it's rubbish. But as usual, the ban has no effect when Tombola bingo had already stopped running this ad from last year anyway.

Australia is apparently running this spot for the *dating* service during the upcoming Oscars, while the U.S. is not. Yea free speech down under! Or is it more, yeah good taste in the U.S.? Latter! Ashley Madison claims there’s hypocrisy at work because of the themes in the movies that night. (Maybe, but the films don’t openly advocate the lifestyles they depict, unlike the dating service which encourages you to cheat.) Here’s the thing though, and it’s what kept Mancrunch from ever having a realistic shot at getting on the Super Bowl, and has nothing to do with gay, not-gay, single, not single, etc.— The ad just ain’t that good. Come Oscar night, there are going to be parodies by the best FX houses (and plastic surgeons) in the world doing segments with actors throughout the evening, and then this comes on? It’s like student work with actors and spray paint. The end.

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