ASA Shows No Benevolence To NABS In Violent Advert Complaint

It was a case of “they should have known better” this month when complaints were upheld by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) against an advertisement placed in industry organ Media Week by the National Advertisers’ Benevolent Society (NABS).

The advertisement included a statement which ran along the lines of “God, I can’t wait till I kill you people. I don’t care if I live or die, all I want to do is kill and injure as many of you as I can…”. This was attributed to “Miss Annabel Broom 22 year old advertising PA and Rugby 7’s prop forward”. Readers were encourage to come and support Annabel and colleagues in a NABS rugby tournament. Two complainants felt that the material irresponsibly associated rugby with violence and condoned it on the field.

Doubtless readers of Media Week would be flattered to know that NABS considers them its “target audience of sophisticated marketing professionals” who would not only appreciate that “the attribution of aggressive language to a young advertising PA produced an ironic and humorous communication” but would also be used to the advertiser’s “thought-provoking, ‘in-your-face’ style” and understand its charitable role. Unfortunately this argument did not convince the ASA, who agreed that the advertisement was irresponsible because of its violent tone and was “likely to seriously offend anyone who did not understand the irony.” The event had already taken place by this time, but the advertisers have been warned to use a different approach in future.

One of the biggest spenders in advertising, the Central Office of Information (COI) also fell foul of the ASA this month. Adverts designed to attract new recruits into the nursing professions included the line “the average full-time qualified nurse earns over £20,000 pa.” A total of 12 complaints were received from around the country challenging this figure.

It turned out that the figure had been calculated by averaging the annual earnings of qualified nurses working full time in the NHS, including allowances such as night duty, weekend duty and London weighting, giving a figure of around £21,000. The figure excluded overtime and senior and management wages and the advertiser said the adverts had been amended to state that the earnings included allowances. Nonetheless the ASA upheld the complaint, saying that it implied that the average nurse’s basic annual wage was £20,000, when the figure was actually the average gross earnings including allowances. Concluding that the advert was misleading, the ASA welcomed an assurance from the advertisers that an amendment would be made.

Advertising Standards Authority: 020 7580 5555