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Age, Race and Advertising Taboos: Nicofresh Campaign Banned in UK

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In Britain, the country “that invented the cat,” they have this organization called the “ASA,” or Advertising Standards Authority, which, despite its “self-regulatory” nature, is basically a censor for the government. We’ll learn more about these heroic protectors of the British public in a minute.

Also, in Britain, they very much like to smoke, with slightly more adults smoking than their American cousins at this point, so e-cigarettes have become big business in the UK. And as is true for any other industry, these businesses need effective advertising to support their brands.

Enter Nicofresh, a British-Irish e-cigarette brand with eyes on the UK’s robust population of nicotine devotees. In order to help sell the concept of the less-offensive smoking device, Nicofresh created a campaign that got a lot of attention—unfortunately, mostly from the ASA, the guys mentioned above. Here’s one of the ads:

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The ASA banned the ads, not because they depict an interracial couple, nor because they depict people of different age groups as a couple—in modern western society these are increasingly accepted norms.

No, the ASA ruling on the Nicofresh ads concluded that the campaign could cause “serious or widespread offence on the grounds of race and age.” Still confused? The document also reveals that the entire uproar was based on a mere ten complaints: six concerned that the ad was offensive for suggesting that relationships between people of different races were socially unacceptable, and four concerned that the ad suggested that relationships between people of different age groups were also unacceptable.

So despite the positive nature of the ad, and even though it could have been banned in the past for the opposite reasons—racism and ageism within society in the past—a campaign like this still can’t be used. Maybe, as Åsk Wäppling of Adland put it, “There are no taboos these days except the taboo of offending people by suggesting there’s been taboos.”



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