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

Stockholm is currently party-town with Stockholm Pride festival in full swing. Sweden's Channel five are tagging along by showing pride-related films like Transamerica, and TV shows like "Rick and Steve: The Happiest Gay Couple in All the World". Absolut Vodka have released a rainbow colored bottle which is prominently displayed in the Swedish state operated liquor stores - but that isn't due to the Prideparty in Stockholm, instead the rainbow bottle is to celebrate that it is 30 years ago that Gilbert Baker of San Francisco designed a flag with six stripes representing the six colours of the rainbow as a symbol of gay and lesbian community pride.


Meanwhile, lots of ads are being pulled due to homophobia or offending homosexual people.


First there was that Heinz "New York deli mom" ad kiss. Or rather - peck. Mom of the house - as always making lunch bags for the kids and the hubby in the kitchen where else would mom be? - has been replaced by a stereotypical Noo Yawka deli man. When Dad is about to rush off to work without kissing the missus, Noo Yawka Deliman says "hey, aren't you forgetting something?" and there is the kiss. 200 people missed the joke and reported the "gay kiss" as offensive and "inappropriate to see two men kissing". Heinz withdrew the ad and and apologised to viewers.

While not everything in black and white makes sense - that this ad is fake fake not paid for by Guiness is dead obvious on first viewing.

Last weeks "duh, obviously fake" ads for Bayer's Bepanthen first aid cream have been officially named fakes by JWT who've even released an official statement about them - as if ads depicting parents roasting their babies over fire, with blowtorches or burning a la marshmallows on a stick would ever have been approved - c'mon!

The recently much debated Red Cross (youth) campaign has been pulled after a discussion with Red Cross headquarters in Geneva last Thursday. You can see the previous posts here; Red Cross campaign compares Chinese human right violations to olympic sports (16th June 2008) and a follow-up posted by the Red Cross Youth Sweden here; Red Cross Youth campaign for human rights (16th July 2008).

The campaign was first posted june 16th here on Adland, and like the (very similar) Amnesty International - After the Olympics campaign (posted 14th of March 2008) it didn't receive much attention at all, until about month later (12th July) when a new adgrunt - whole9yards - spotted something wrong with the images and left a comment about it. The photos in the campaign were shot in Nepal, and not in China.

The campaign then quickly took on a life on it's own, appearing in forums such as Anti-CNN.com, HK Yahoo.com, LKCN portal, bbs.hdpu.edu.cn, and even spawning facebook groups like this one*. For the extra curious who can't read chinese, you might find the worldlingo translator useful when trying to make out what is going on in some of those threads.

You'd think it couldn't be done, the "Lowering of dignity" bit that is, but the annoying ringtone with the equally annoying ad from Peach mobile which shows president Robert Mugabe as a caged gorilla has been canned. Peachmobile protested, saying that they had a constitutional "right to mock Mugabe because he is a despot." (From The Times: ‘Racist’ ringtone advert banned)

The ASA found, "... the respondent is infringing on the rights of Robert Mugabe by portraying him in an offensive an undignified manner and as such the commercial is demeaning and lowering Robert Mugabe's dignity. A hypothetical reasonable person would be offended on viewing the commercial as it unnecessarily and intentionally demeans Robert Mugabe."

The ASA ordered that the commercial be withdrawn immediately.

It was just a matter of time, wasn't it?

Italy's advertising watchdog, the Institute for Advertising Self-Discipline (IAP), has banned Tom Ford Eyewear ads from national media. A close-up photo of a woman wearing the brand's sunglasses with a man's finger in her mouth was deemed by IAP to be "markedly vulgar" and, as such, it "transcends the limits of simple bad taste and offends the sensibility" of viewers. In addition, the committee believes the "scene evokes an offending and abusive act against women, which degrades the dignity of the person." IAP also said the sexual innuendo and provocative edge are part of a campaign based on these kinds of images, noting that the brand's Web site itself describes the spring-summer campaign photos as "sexually explicit." Vincenzo Guggino, general secretary at IAP, said the images were banned after publication last month in three magazines, including Italian Vogue. "Fashion companies very rarely present their ads for inspection before they appear in the media," said Guggino. "Our mission is to promote better and more acceptable communication." .

From: wwd.com

Some might say that a castrated lion is the perfect symbol for European defence policy - and the Times online claims some unidentified US blogger did but I have not found a source for that quote. It all began when a few women in the Nordic Battle Group were miffed that the symbol for their group showed a male lion, and they figured this was sex discrimination so they lodged a complaint with the European Court of Justice. Before anyone could say nip-tuck the lion on the coat of arms was castrated via computer.

The lion, before and after.

The Lions designer Vladimir A Sagerlund doesn't think it's in the least bit amusing: “The Army lacks knowledge about heraldry. Coats of arms containing lions without genitalia were given to those who betrayed the Crown.” he said to Göteborgs Posten. Mr Sagerlund knows a thing or two about this, having worked as a crest designer at the National Archives since 1994.

A pretty useless snip if you ask me, since the Lion is still clearly a male with that mane - the Times says that "the message remains clear: the lions are supposed to display courage and nothing else." To me, choosing the lazy-ass, never hunt for himself male lion as a symbol for courage when the females do all the scary hunting work (in tight units no less, with each female responsible for one part of the hunt, how very army-like) seems kind of silly right there so while we're already using by now outdated symbols could we at least let the poor critter keeps his balls? Then there are those who are better at latin than me who argue that "ad omnia paratus" in female form would be paratas, so we're not gender neutral even in the motto, making the snip a tad impotent.
There are plenty of other crests that are clearly male animals, and sadly it looks as if they'll be loosing their parts soon as well. Where will all the baby crests come from in the future?
Hat tip to Bold

Price and Dwight Yorke sired a little tyke named Harvey, who was unfortunately born with a disorder called septo-optic dysplasia. HEAT magazine has the bad taste of giving away stickers with Harvey's face and a supposed quote from Jordan on it saying "Harvey want's to eat me". 30 complaints so far from members of the public and serious indication that Jordan will file a complaint as well reported in the Guardian. Heat has already apologized but I still smell the banhammer coming.

Meanwhile, that ill-considered Renault ad John Kelly photographed and wrote to Renault to complain about, has even though John didn't receive a reply been pulled. "Any misunderstanding of the N-word is totally unintentional. However, this specific print advertisement will be removed with immediate effect, so as not to cause any offence." said a spokesman for Renault UK. Unintentional, yah, rrrright.

Bonus: Stereo Hell has a great shot of a fake American Apparel poster in NYC which depicts an illustrated brazilian wax girl touching herself with the line "safe to say, she loves her socks". Good sendup, whomever made that.

Ryanair - misleading and unfair comparisons

Special K - misleading health claims

Hooters - too objectifying

Unforgivable - this one gets "banned" with BS-quoties around it.

This week the Swedish Consumer Ombudsman decided that Corona went one step too far when advertising their piss beer in print. I'd seen these ads near daily in every newspaper and was about to post them just for a fun use of media, where the lime shoots through and shatters the bottle, then "leaves" the designated ad area and flies into a nearby article. Cute.
Well, it ain't legal, says the Consumer Ombusman and banned Corona for breaking § 11 a of the alcohol advertising law which plainly states that "in print ad images you may only depict 1.) The product or ingredients of the product. 2.) One or two of the product's packagings or 3.) brand or comparable known mark."

Lime is not one of the ingredients of Corona, so nyah nyah, your ad is banned. It didn't help at all that Corona defended themselves with "but... but.. everyone uses lime with Corona!" (to add the flavour this beer is lacking I presume).

Proving that everything is upside down down under (oh c'mon, I had to work that in there) comes this bizarre story. A McDonald's ad is banned because it undermines parent's authority, like they do, but a nutty Nando ad depicting mother as a pole dancer is OK.

The Smoking Gun reports 'Britney ballistic over billboards' and the ex-pop tart may sue for "nut job" advertisements using her bald head. The ads area headlined "Total Nut Jobs," "Shock Therapy," and "Certifiable." clearly questioning Britney's sanity, and while her lawyer doesn't touch on weather she is nuts or not he claims Spears's "likeness has a multi-million-dollar value for authorized commercial exploitations" and, as a result, she is entitled to "very substantial damages" from Clear Channel.

Note, not sure if the headlines "Total Nut Jobs," "Shock Therapy," and "Certifiable." are talking about Britney or the hacks who created these shite ads.

The Hollywood reporter says Curtain falls quickly on 'Captivity' ad campaign - the Los Angeles billboards and taxi ads for the movie "Captivity" proved too much for the public and were taken down as soon as they came up.

After Dark said the posting of the billboards was an accident. CEO Courtney Solomon said the wrong files were sent to the printer, who then passed them on to the billboard company without approval from any executives at After Dark.

Dove is at it again with their campaign for real beauty, currently airing several different parts of the campaign. Or not airing, as the case is with their Pro Age ad. Six over-50 gorgeous women do their best 'calender girl' homage in the latest ad posing buck naked in the ad, which is banned from airing because - get this - it "shows too much skin". Seems the TV ads don't adhere to FCC regulations.
GettyImages blog says:

This whole debacle is fascinating to me on two fronts. 1) How can it be that Ms. Spears is allowed to gyrate in a bikini top on MTV with a snake whilst singing "I'm a slave for you" to 12 year olds, but 50-something women are not allowed to be shown sans clothes in what I would argue is a completely tasteful, if not downright elegant manner? And 2) why is said "debacle" not more of a…well…debacle? The only mainstream coverage I was able to find on this was here, and that's on a Canadian news site.

It gets better - or worse - pro-family and women's groups are urging a boycott of Dove products for "contributing to the sexualization of women as a commercial tool, as well as exposing children to adult nudity."

We've come a long way baby. The VW Jumper ad (inside for those who haven't seen it yet) created by Crispin Porter + Bogusky in Miami has been pulled after complaints from several groups among them Suicide Prevention Action Network, National Alliance on Mental Illness, American Psychiatric Association, Mental Health America and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

Just last week General Motors decided to edit the Robot Superbowl spot where a depressed assembly robot dreams that he jumps off a bridge.

Right now, thousands of creatives are mimicking shooting themselves in the head with their markers, I bet. The VW "jumper" commercial is inside - not in youtubian format. It keeps getting posted and yanked there since it breaks their terms of service. (Do'h people!)

And if at first you don’t succeed, you can dust yourself off and try try again. Lindex seems to live by this motto, as last year their "we love boobs" campaign was banned by clearchannel (Who own practically all the outdoor adspace in Sweden) and the campaign was not allowed to run in the subway or on the city buses.
This year Lindex thought they'd do it again, and up until a few days ago, it looked like it might work. Just last week Johan Hallin, marketing executive at Lindex, confidently told Resume "This time SL (the public transport authority) has seen the campaign and approved it".

He must have not gotten the memo - because today Resume reports that SL allows the images, but not the headline "we love boobs".

Dolce & Gabbana has had some theatrical looking ads where men brandish knives banned by the ASA. After receiving 157 complaints, including from groups such as Mothers Against Murder And Aggression (“MAMAA”) and Media March the ASA agreed that the knives were brandished aggressively and the image of a man lying on the ground with a wound to his forehead added to the overall impression of violence and upheld the complaint.

Swedes - the prudes with the scandalous reputation and the high ratio of buxom blondes has banned a Lavazza ad as it was discriminating. See tame pin-up inside.

A woman in a revealing mediaeval frock sits perched atop a hay bale, declaring "I love a good session on the Bishop's Finger". , and honestly now who doesn't? I know I love a good round of the Bishop's finger!

Sadly, the ASA didn't like the pun and thought that the womans suggestive pose linked alcohol to seduction and sexual activity. But honestly now, with a name like that what is a decent ale to do but link to sex?

A Shepherd Neame spokesperson said today the ale's advertising campaign was designed to amuse, not offend.