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ASA: likely to cause serious or widespread offence
The people:.Eye-catching, harmless, light-hearted,
funny and suitable for the product
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Credos which styles itself as an advertising think tank has published a report for the trade group, the Outdoor Media Centre examining the public offensiveness of some of the more controversial outdoor advertising campaigns.
The report, Public Attitudes Towards Outdoor Advertising, found that outdoor advertising is bottom on the list of offensive advert formats that the public are exposed to, with the internet; rap music; music videos; computer games and TV all being rated higher.
Credos asked 1051 GB adults aged 16-64 what they thought of twelve outdoor ads, four of which were banned by the ASA, with the other eight having received complaints.
It was found that while some ads provoked a strong emotional reaction, the public are generally unlikely to consider an advert so offensive that they would complain about it.
Respondents were asked to choose key words to describe each ad, out of the following list: funny, light-hearted, suitable for the product, harmless, depends on location and eye-catching. Harmless was the word used most often.
The perfect 10 ad for a gentlemen’s club was found to be the ad which offended the most people, (31% of all adults) with inappropriate, vulgar, rude, eye-catching and sexist the top five words used to describe it.
