ASA Adjudication on Kerry Foods Ltd

Ad

Two 10-second TV ads for Mattessons Fridge Raiders.

(a) One ad featured a man at a bus stop intently eating the snack. He was unaware that the mouths of the people around him, including an elderly woman, had contorted into vampire-like fangs. They advanced towards him with their teeth bared but returned to their normal selves when the man looked up. The voiceover said "Mattessons Fridge Raiders. Succulent bites of chicken breast ... brings out your carnivorous side."

(b) The other ad featured a man at a bus stop intently eating the snack. From the far right of the man, a toddler was shown dragging himself towards the man in his pushchair with a determined look and his mouth distorted to show large carnivorous teeth. The voiceover said "Mattessons Fridge Raiders. Succulent bites of chicken breast ... brings out your carnivorous side."

Issue

1. Three viewers complained that ad (a) was frightening for children and should not have been broadcast when they could see it.

2. One viewer complained that ad (b) was frightening for children and should not have been broadcast when they could see it.

BCAP TV Code

BCAP TV Scheduling Code

Response

Mattessons explained that the ads were not meant to scare but to be tongue-in-cheek and similar in design to the films Scooby Doo and The Mask. They said they had instructed their media planner to buy post 7.30 pm air-time for ad (a) and for ad (b) "ex-kids" air-time after complaints had been received, and investigated by the ASA, on a previous similar ad. They explained that the similar ad was 30 seconds long and showed several ordinary people morphing to have vampire-like fangs and approaching the man menacingly at the bus stop. They pointed out that both 10-second ads had been strongly edited. They considered that a post 7.30 pm restriction was appropriate for the 30-second ad but not for the two edited 10-second ads because only four complaints had been received in total for both of them compared to 59 for the previous 30-second ad.

The Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre (BACC) explained that at the time of the previous ASA investigation, the 10-second ads were not considered to be a problem as the complaints were only about the 30-second version. They therefore considered at that time that no timing restriction was necessary, although Mattessons took the decision to schedule ad (a) after 7.30 pm. The BACC believed timing restrictions were still unnecessary because of the low level of complaints and few reports of children actually being upset by the 10-second ads. They pointed out that there were only fleeting shots of the crowd of people with fangs in ad (a) and that ad (b) had just the boy exaggeratedly opening and closing his mouth.

Assessment

Not upheld

The ASA acknowledged that Mattessons had taken steps to attempt to avoid upsetting children, following the previous investigation, by trying to buy air-time slots away from childrens programmes and, for the ad featuring the crowd, after 7.30 pm. We considered that children who had been upset by the previous 30-second ad might be reminded of it and upset if they saw these 10-second ads because all three began identically with the man at the bus stop. But, we noted only two children had been upset by ad (a) and that at least one of these children had previously been upset by the longer 30-second ad in the past. We considered that both these ads were brief and mild in content and concluded that they were unlikely to cause distress to children and that scheduling restrictions were not therefore warranted.

On points 1 and 2, we investigated the ad under the CAP (Broadcast) TV Advertising Standards Code rules 7.3.6 (Distress - Children), 7.3.7 (Scheduling restrictions) and CAP (Broadcast) rules on the Scheduling of Advertisements rule 4.2.3 (Treatments unsuitable for children) but did not find it in breach.

Action

No action required.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Broadcast)