ASA Adjudication on Coca-Cola Ireland

Ad

An ad, for Fanta, showed people on a tropical island. A man approached a woman and said "I like your bubbles." She slapped him in the face. The man then said "You're orange"; the woman slapped him in the face again. The slapping actions were accompanied by sound effects. Finally the man said "I can't get enough of you"; the woman said "Ahhhhh" and smiled. A bottle of Fanta appeared on the screen with the text "Stay BAMBOOCHA (live large)".

The Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre (BACC) had approved the ad with an ex-kids restriction, meaning that it could not be shown in or around programmes made specifically for children but could be shown at other times of the day.

Issue

1.  The complainant thought the ad glorified, encouraged and trivialized domestic violence.

2.  The ASA challenged whether the ad could cause physical harm to children by encouraging them to copy the slapping action.

Response

1.  Coca Cola said the ad was intended to have a humorous, playful tone.  They said they had carried out some research and had found that the target audience had reacted positively to the ad.  They said they condemned all acts of violence and sincerely regretted any offence the ad might have caused to members of the public.

The BACC said the ad was only aired in Northern Ireland between 10 April and 8 May 2006 and there were no current plans to air it again.

The BACC believed the scenario depicted in the ad did not condone, encourage or belittle domestic violence.  They said it was merely a silly and somewhat hackneyed portrayal of a man who paid a penalty for offending a woman.  They said it followed the style of "Carry On" films by depicting a man who was hopeless with women and got himself into trouble as a result.  The BACC argued that TV ads quite often showed women slapping men in the face.  They believed the complaint was the first they had received about an ad depicting a man being slapped by a woman.

2.  We drew the BACC's attention to a Tango ad that had showed a genie-type, orange character slapping unsuspecting passers-by with two hands, one on each side of the head, accompanied by the slogan "You know when you've been Tangoed".  That ad was banned by the Independent Television Commission (ITC) in 1992, because evidence emerged that a playground craze for copying the action had resulted in cases of perforated eardrums.

The BACC said the Fanta ad was completely different from the Tango ad because it showed a straightforward, one-handed slap from a female to a male and did not contain the same level of violence or the same element of surprise attack as the Tango ad.

Assessment

1.  Complaint not upheld

The ASA considered that the ad depicted a man who, having been persuaded that a soft drink would endow him with the power to seduce women, was slapped by a woman for saying something she considered offensive; we noted the man did not show pain after the slaps but continued with his chat-up lines, undeterred by the woman's actions.  We considered that the ad was likely to be seen by viewers as a light-hearted portrayal of theatrical violence and unlikely to be seen as a realistic portrayal of cruel or violent behaviour.  We concluded that the ex-kids timing restriction was sufficient.

On this point, we investigated the ad under CAP (Broadcast) TV Advertising Standards Code rule 6.2 (Violence and cruelty) but did not find it in breach.

2.  Not upheld

Although we considered that the product, the ad's comic tone and its characters were likely to appeal to children, we also considered that the slapping in the ad was likely to be seen as a result of specific male-female provocation, not a surprise attack.  Because copying the slapping would necessitate either taking it out of the provocation context, or setting up a scenario whereby the child asked another party to insult them, we considered that the slapping action was unlikely to be copied by children.  We concluded that the ad was unlikely to cause physical harm to children.  We noted the ex-kids timing restriction and considered that it was sufficient.

On this point, we investigated the ad under CAP (Broadcast) TV Advertising Standards Code rule 7.3.2 (Physical harm / (1) Harmful emulation) but did not find it in breach.

Action

No further action necessary.