Number one on the BBC/ASA list :
This advert was the most complained about in 2006. It was a national press ad which pictured a Bible and a claim from the Gay Police Association of a link between homophobic attacks and religious motivation. Several Christian groups complained about the advert, saying it was offensive to them and discriminatory in tone.
The ASA upheld the complaints, saying that it was indeed offensive, was misleading in its suggestion that all incidents involved physical injury and in statistical claims which were never proved to the ASA.
The most complained about advert in 2005 was by KFC and featured people in a call centre singing with their mouths full. It received more than three times as many complaints.
One complaint that was not upheld was this one, alleging racism against Americans:
[Channel] Five ran a teaser poster campaign saying that “nothing good ever came out of America”. The conclusion of the campaign was to highlight American films and TV programmes, but some people complained that the teaser was racist towards Americans and socially irresponsible in that it could incite racial violence. The ASA disagreed.
It’s a very interesting list. The main criteria for ad regulation in the UK are that they be ‘legal, honest, decent and truthful’.
It’s an essentially self-regulatory system that depends on complaints for any official action to be taken. Sometimes it can be hard to see just quite how judgements about particular ads’ offensiveness were reached – and often it seems as though the louder the shouting, the more effective a complaint is.
