Once again, the world wide web causes a local ad to be misinterpreted abroad. Americans who saw the KFC Cricket Survival guide ad found it racist, as it depicts "African Americans liking fried chicken"

Come again? The ad, which in Australia was titled "How to Silence a Noisy Crowd", depicts an Australia fan who has ended up in the seating area of the West Indies fans. "Need a tip when you're stuck in an awkward situation?" he asks the camera. He then serves a bucket of chicken to everyone around him and any opposing team friction is defused as all cricket fans like food. It is but one handy tip in the KFC Cricket Survival guide campaign.

Over in the states, both Videogum, and the Huffington post think the ad is racist, News.com.au reports on the accusations of racism abroad. KFC has responded by discontinuing the ad.  read more »

The Guardian reports that the OAA campaign designed to promote the effectiveness of billboard advertising has withdrawn the poster that read: "Career women make bad mothers" after an outcry from the offended public. "Educashun Isn't Working" and "1966. It Won't Happen This Year" will be running instead.

The campaign was devised by veteran creative Garry Lace, from the Beta agency, to show the power of billboard advertising as an alternative to digital advertising. He was unavailable for comment at the time of publication.

Adage reports that this Method ad from Droga5 was pulled after sexism complaints.

Sexist ad ban of the week goes to UlsterTrader.com who ran this billboard, featuring a bra-clad cleavage with the headline Nice headlamps and below that asking asking what do you look for in a car?

Since the ban was invariable, and the ASA clampdown will, as always, result in more exposure for this piss poor excuse of an ad, one might think this was the idea in the first place. Either that, or the creators of the ad hoped that punters would see it, and unable to tear their eyes away they'd crash their cars and then need to buy a new one at Ulstertrader.com. Or they were simply really crap creatives and an even worse client who thought this would fly. Wake up and smell the coffee, like adlib says in our previous post about sexist ads, " my reptilian brain does not make expensive car purchasing decisions". Ads like these are as insulting to men as they are women. But you'd have to have half a brain of your own to know that, and clearly nobody at Ulstertrader.com does.

Hat tip to Grahamcreative who sighed about the extra exposure. The Guardian:

The complainants argued that the poster was offensive because it objectified women, degraded them, was sexist and that it implied that women, like cars, were commodities to be bought and sold.

UlsterTrader.com said its brand values included the "use of humour and fun" and that the ad used "light-hearted slang, to what people of both sexes would regard as attractive attributes". The ads ran in 20 high-profile and high-traffic locations in Northern Ireland.

"We considered the image of the woman's cleavage coupled with the strapline ... was likely to be seen to objectify and degrade women by linking attributes of a woman [and] her cleavage to attributes of a car, [namely] the headlamps, in a way that would be seen to imply a woman, like a car, was to be selected for those attributes," said the ASA. "We concluded that the poster had caused serious offence to some readers and was likely to cause widespread offence."  read more »

Last year a school class of twelve year olds reported ToysRus Christmas catalogue to the Advertising Ombudsman in Sweden for "sexual discrimination" in their advertising - and won.

The class said that in the catalogue "All the girls are always dressed in pink, only found on the princess and Barbie pages, posing 'awkward' and never included in any of the action toy areas". The kids suggested that the background colors of the catalogue should be made neutral instead of stark pinks and blues, that girls should also been seen on the Lego and Toy car pages and that the princess and knight dress up pages could be gender mixed as suggestions on how to "stop reinforcing traditional gender roles". The class ended their motivation with calling the catalogue "old-fashioned and insulting". The Advertising Ombudsman took their time, but have now agreed with the class and Toys R Us need to rethink that pink. Source: Aftonbladet  read more »

This weeks ban could be filed under "that's what Dov was going for all along", as an American Apparel ad has been banned in the UK by the ASA for featuring a girl looking underage and the shots "suggested she was stripping off for an amateur photo shoot". Isn't that their entire 'campaign'? The ASA ruling also reads: "Because the ad could be seen to sexualise a model who appeared to be a child, under the age of 16 years, we concluded that it was inappropriate and could cause serious offence to some readers.'' The ad appeared in VICE magazine, where it paled in comparison to the editorial content. ;)  read more »

This ad, showing Jesus snapping a picture of a bunch of nuns with the Samsung SL310W camera, was published in Lebanese newspaper Al Mostakbal last week.

The ad has been called "an attack against Christian symbols", bound to happen as soon as Jesus is involved, but here's the kicker - the ad agency FP7 who created it, doesn't have the Samsung account.
Sunny Hwang, the president of Samsung Electronics Levant, said to Brandrepublic "At no time was Samsung Electronics aware of these advertisements and the company has not approved or commissioned FP7 to create any advertising campaigns. "

At the recent Dubai Lynx awards, FP7 picked up a gold, a few silvers and even the ad agency of the year award but after this little mishap, the agency (and their work) is being investigated by the award organisers and they might get stripped of all their honors.

At what point is it ever a good idea to create, and actually run campaigns for clients that you don't have? The spec turned ghost ad epidemic seems to be getting worse by the minute here - in some cases I understand how it happens. Say, for example, you have an idea approved by the local branch of a worldwide brand which gets nixed the moment the global director gets a whiff of it. Or, you were way too exited when you submitted spec work here that you forgot to tell us it was spec and the worlds adblogs operate under the assumption that it's real (please don't do that).

Seems to me that we're getting more and more cases of this, is it happening more often or does the collective hive mind of the web reveal them more often? Even Cannes is littered with ads that are ghosts these past few years, remember the Luxor hightlights campaign from Leo Burnett, even though it was Lowe's client. JC Penney never approved the dressing down ad which Saatchi NY won a Cannes Bronze Lion with, but at least in that case Saatchi did actually have the client. The balls of creating an ad for a competing agencies client and running with it, wow.

There are places you can show off spec work, for example the London International IDA, and new awards for work that dies on the foam core is popping up like mushrooms every day, even we have a spec work category here so we don't delete submissions, even when the client does a u-turn after you've spent a week on the shoot creating that great campaign.  read more »

The Coca Cola owned Oasis drink brand campaign about "Cactus kid" and his pregnant girlfriend has been banned by the ASA in the UK.

The ending to the story was chosen by Cactus kid fans at www.runcactuskidrun.com and aired the 22 August during the Big Brother show in the UK - making this a toothless ban indeed since the campaign has already officially ended anyway. This ad, it seems, was the final straw - the campaign received 32 complaints, which is apparently enough to get something off the air. It does make sense to kick Oasis a little for acting as if it is a relpacement for regular water. That ain't healthy.

Oasis – Cactus Kid part one (2008):30 (UK)

Oasis - Cactus kid / Diner (part two) - (2008) :30 (UK)

Oasis - Cactus kid / Motel (part three) - (2008) :30 (UK)

Watch the final ad inside, after the jump, folks!  read more »

A radio ad in the UK has been banned for being too quick!.

The Vodafone radio advertisement was banned after the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled that the 'disclaimer' was too difficult for listeners to understand as it was read very fast. You can listen to it at the BBC website

[Vodafone] contended that the radio advertising standard codes made no mention at which speed the legal terminology should be delivered.
They also said they did not believe their advertisement to be deceptive and in contravention of advertising legislation.

I think Disclaimer guy might want to step outside to have a word with the ASA. "Don't interrupt Disclaimer guy, I'm serious don't even test me, I'll bring the heavens down..."  read more »

"Zack and Miri Make a Porno" opened at the Toronto film festival last week and this poster - yes, this one on the left here - was banned because.. Well I don't even know why.

Silent Bob a.k.a Kevin Smith might just be getting his fingers slapped for putting the word "Porno" in the title here - he actually had to petition the film's rating down from NC-17 to R, and now this poster is banned by the MPAA. Whisky tango Foxtrot? The poster is humourous and fully clothed - though with two conspicuously placed heads. Is this deserving of a ban? What do you adgrunts think?

Only those who have done what is implied here might get - and if you've done it, I reckon it may be to late to save that kid with a rating. Girls are pregnant at the age of 17 - I think they might now what the woohoos and dodahs do.

I'd understand the ban if the "coming soon" was spelled differently. Puns like that are evil. ;)

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