ITC Upholds Complaints Of 92 Against NTL World Ads
A total of 92 viewers complained to the Independent Television Commission (ITC) when NTL were unable to cope with the response to advertising of its free internet service.
Huge demand for NTL World led to a backlog in demand which forced the company to pull the advert in May (see NTL Pulls Advertising Of Net Service). The ITC upheld the viewers’ complaints despite the withdrawal, saying that as the first complaints were received in late April the advertising was misleading from that time.
A total of 3,250 complaints were determined by the ITC during the first six months of 2000, giving an average of just over 540 complaints per month.
During June 745 complaints were received. The worst offender was the NTL advert, but relatively high numbers of viewers also complained about advertising for Sure for Men, Handbag.com and Sega Dreamcast.
The Sure for Men ‘Factory’ advert, which featured two men going for an interview in a factory full of scantily clad, sweaty women and sexually suggestive images, attracted complaints from 36 viewers. The ITC did not agree that the imagery was too shocking or sexually explicit to be shown before the watershed. “There was a certain level of innuendo in the commercial [but] there was no sexual explicitness.” said the Commission, ruling that as the BACC had already stipulated that the advert shouldn’t air in or around children’s programming, the content did not warrant a more stringent timing restriction.
Handbag.com advertised its women’s portal with footage of a woman firing a gun at her broken-down car, causing it to explode. 37 viewers complained that this encouraged the use of guns and felt it was irresponsible to show it at a time when children could see it. Some were also offended that the advert was shown in the light of recent tragic events involving firearms, especially in the US. The ITC judged that since the style of the advertising was similar to action adventure movies, the existing BACC restriction which prevented it being shown before 7.30pm was sufficient and did not uphold the complaint.
Sega Dreamcast poked fun at national stereotypes in order to encourage users of its games console to challenge players in other countries on-line. One advert, portraying Germans as sausage-eating, sun lounger-hogging lager drinkers provoked protest from 13 viewers who thought it offensive and racist and 5 who thought it provoked violence with the concluding line “FACT! Germany always wins. You will play me head to head on-line through your Dreamcast. As you say, come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough.”
The advertiser defended its representation of Germans as being “light-hearted” in intent and aimed at asking viewers not to take national rivalry too seriously during the Euro 2000 football competition. The BACC added that they believed the other two “English” and “French” adverts in the series helped balance the campaign. The ITC decided that althought stereotyping was unacceptable to some viewers it did not lead to harmful social effects and therefore did not uphold those complaints. However, it judged the inclusion of the “hard enough” phrase, which is a common football chant, to be “ill judged and irresponsible”, especially considering the public concern about violence between fans during the tournament. The five complaints about this aspect of the advertising were therefore upheld.
ITC: 020 7255 3000