Are ads becoming more offensive?

Is the pressure to stand out among the clutter leading to more offensive advertising? According to today's annual report by the ASA, a record 14,080 commercials were complained about last year, up 9.6% on 2006.

The biggest offender was the Department of Health's hard hitting fish hooks campaign.

Others to incur the wrath of the public included a humorous wildlife documentary spoof by Coca-Cola, a cheeky bus wrap from The Sun newspaper featuring a page 3 model with enlarged ten pence pieces over each breast and the infamous Cadbury Trident chewing gum ad.

Is the ad industry guilty of offending sensibilities or is the public becoming more sensitive?

 

i'd like to see the demographics of folks that complained.

probably ever so traumatised sitting in their 5 bed detached house in guildford.

It's the ad industry just doing their job - but they could be a little more sensitive to the time their ads go out and where they appear. The fish hook ad used to be up on the billboards outside Waterloo Station, it's pretty gruesome and I didn't think that location was right. But on TV and between the right programs, why not?

Perhaps? No ads really stick in my head so i'm absolutely useless at comparing the ads on TV now to the ones playing 10 years ago...

Why don't these numpties find a worthy issue to bitch about, like starving children in Darfur, Ethnic cleansing in the Balkans?  Human Rights abuses in China ? Child labour in India ?

Just how small minded is this nation of ours?

FFS !

No, they're not more offensive. It's more like the public of Britain are more likely to find offence in just about everything.

This maybe gettingclose to conspiracy theory. With the exception of the one from the department of health, it is possible for lousy competitors to find an excuse to say that this ad is offensive and to mess the promotional campaign.

I TOTALLY agree - we're moving in the right direction but we need to cause a LOT more offence if we want to start shifting products.

Get yards ahead of the timid idiots by harnessing Stockholm Syndrome to really offend/imperil your target market. I've spelt it out for you on my BR blog: http://www.brandrepublic.com/blogs/showpost/64c03d4d-0946-4fdb-b79b-8ad64bdf965a/

Yeah.  We're becoming an increasingly unshockable culture and so ads have to really push the boundaries of taste and decency sometimes to get real cut-through.  Although one persons offensive poster is another person's source of hilarity, so having your knuckles wrapped by the ASA may not be a completely bad thing.  Your brand is in the limelight, it may not be wholly positive, but it's brand awareness generation nevertheless

As Graeme says - demographics. It's actually quite hard to comment, without knowing what kind/groups of people are so offended, they have to register complaints. - Certainly in England there's a strong feeling amongst "baby boomers" and above - that some classic English decency is dying/dead - and I think theyre pretty p*$$ed about that.

 

(Obviously because of the TV medium - when you market to Youth, for instance - all age groups are exposed.)

On the other hand, in general - you can push and push taste boundaries, and things are gonna snap - from time to time.

 

 

 

 

Ads are becoming more offensive. So are the people who complain.

And there's a new literacy in the art of complaining in the Uk, which is arguably a good thing, but I do suspect there are a higher proportion of w*nkers with too much time on their hands.

So we should complain more - about dull ads.

Never forget George Orwell's definition of our screwed up biz... "Advertising is the rattle of a stick in a swill pail!" Bloody marvelous!

Cheers/George

:-) heh

There are certain companies behind these ads - who are ugly inside. If you have ever worked for one - you would know. Look at some of the bully boy ads on the BBC. If you dig around long enough and hard enough, they come back to a few ugly monster companies - who are rotten and ugly inside.

 No.. There are also place where you can make your ads cheaper or sometimes free.. Your work is to choose the correct place where to ad and how to ad..

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