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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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.

KFC - West Indies vs Australia / Awkward / How to Silence a Noisy Crowd - (2010) :30 (Australia)

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.

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."

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

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. ;)

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.

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!
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!

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..."