ASA's 2015 Most Complained Campaigns #3

Coming in at number three on the Advertising Standards Authority "Top 10 most complained about advertisements of 2015" is the Christmas PayPal advert. This advert attracted 464 complaints over the Christmas period while it was being shown.

The adverts consisted of two young children who were concerned that they weren't getting Christmas presents this year as they had not seen their parents go shopping for Christmas presents . The main idea of this advertisement is that the parents did not need to go shopping as they purchased all of their presents this year through PayPal with the tagline "Check out before they know it". 

However, complaints arose concerns that the advert revealed the truth about Father Christmas as they believed that since the parents were not purchasing any gifts that they would not receive any at all. This caused parents to complain and worry that if their children were watching this advert, they might start to think that Father Christmas was not real. The complaints caused concern over the timing that the advert was shown on television as it was at peak times such as 5pm/6pm which meant that the advert could not be avoided by children. 

Although this advert gathered a large number of complaints over the short period that the advert was aired on television, the ASA resulted the advert as not upheld as they believed the advert did no harm and did not make it clear about the truth about Father Christmas. However after the complaints arose and word spread across social media regarding the negative advert, PayPal decided to independently change the scheduling of the advertisement in order to avoid the times that children may see the advertisements.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdu0WKIhjeU

click the link above to watch the advert. Please comment below how you feel about the advert and if you feel that it reveals the truth about Father Christmas. Would you have complained about this advert?

ASA's 2015 Most Complained Campaigns #2

In the Advertising Standards Agency list of most complained adverts in 2015. The company "Booking.com" appeared three times in the list! Taking the spaced of number two, four and seven in the top 10 list of most complained about ads. 

This television and cinema advert brought in 683 complaints before the ruling in 2015 however, more complaints have been sent in about this advert since then. The complaints were mainly that the advert was offensive and encouraged bad language especially amongst children as the advert used a play on words where the word "booking" was used to replace a swear word. This was meant to be a light hearted play on words however, many of the public took great offence and did not find the humour behind making a joke around bad language as if it was making it okay which sent a bad message to children. 

The advert featured scenes of various people arriving at their holiday destinations. The voice-over script went like this:

, "This holiday has been a year in the planning. And here you are standing, nay staring down your dreams. The rest of your holiday hinges on the moment you walk through that door. The door opens, you hold your breath and then you realise. You got it right. You got it booking right. Because it doesn't get any better than this. It doesn't get any booking better than this. Look at the view, look at the booking view. This is exactly what you booking needed. Bask in the booking glory at over half a million properties. Planet earth's number one accommodation site. Booking dot com, booking dot yeah." 

The majority of complainants, who believed the word "booking" had been substituted in place of a swear word, challenged whether the ads were offensive. A number of complainants challenged whether the ads were irresponsible because they were likely to condone or encourage swearing amongst children. People also complained that it was scheduled inappropriately as it was shown during the adverts of films such as Harry Potter and Night at the museum; meaning that children would most definitely be seeing the advert. 

However, as a result, the ASA did not uphold the advert, judging that it was a light hearted play on words that couldn't be mistaken for an actual swear word.  it was also ruled that the ad was unlikely to encourage swearing amongst children as any children that did pick up on the joke were unlikely to have learned bad language through the ad itself as the word itself was not used. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4M-FhM49SU

follow the link above to have a look at the advert yourself and comment on what you think about the advert? do you think this advert is offensive in any way or encouraging the use of swear words?
Looking forward to discussing what everyone thinks about this advert and hearing all of the opinions on the topic