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Dopey complaints

Tuesday, June 24th, 2008

Pity the Advertising Standards Complaints Board. Get a load of these complaints, all from its latest summary of decisions: The word “shitty” in a Burger Fuel poster was “offensive and socially irresponsible”. A newspaper ad for Waikato draught beer with the tagline “for a hardcase thirst” was said to contain “an unduly masculine theme”. A […]

Regulating broadcasting content

Monday, May 26th, 2008

You may know that the government is having a big think about what to do about the patchwork of increasingly moth-eaten laws and regimes that govern broadcasting content. It has produced discussion papers and invited feedback. The submissions are here. More on this soon.

Ad strategy: attract complaints?

Wednesday, February 27th, 2008

Surely Hell Pizza is trying to make its ads offensive so that it can attract extra publicity by having complaints against them upheld. How else to explain its direct mail ad that says: Hell Spicy BBQ Pork Spare Ribs are by all accounts a lot like having sex with Jenny Shipley – messy but good. […]

“Confusing” is right

Friday, February 22nd, 2008

Deborah Hill Cone opines that the Advertising Standards Complaints Board decision about the Charlies ad is “confusing”. So’s her column. She says the decision, upholding the complaint about the ad, is confusing because much more graphic non-cartoony stuff is shown on telly, such as Californication. Then she says that the ads have commercial motives, and that this is a reason […]

Right Charlies?

Monday, February 4th, 2008

Was the Advertising Standards Complaints Board right to uphold a complaint about the Charlies “sunbathing” fruit-juice ad? Even after Charlies agreed to screen it only in adult-viewing timeslots? It’s a typical piece of Marc Ellis larrikinism. He’s shown as a cartoon child spying on a buxom neighbour sunbathing nude (her cartoony breasts are strategically covered, first […]

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