ASA Adjudication on Ocado Ltd

Ad

A radio ad for the Ocado grocery delivery service. The ad featured the song "I am the Ocado man" sung by a man impersonating Elvis. He sang "... I'm your loyal Ocado man ... saving money off your bill gives me some kind of kinky kind of thrill, yes siree share the love with me ... when you save your money it makes me go kind of funny ... O C A D O .com its time we met online". At the end of the song he said "Don't worry honey I know you've got a tight little purse".

Issue

Listeners complained that the ad was offensive, because of the sexual innuendo, especially in the last line.

BCAP Radio Code

Response

The Radio Advertising Clearance Centre (RACC) said the ad promoted savings available to Ocado customers and in that context, the end line was, at most, an obscure sexual allusion. They believed the sexual allusion would not be apparent or offensive to the vast majority of listeners.

Ocado endorsed the RACC's comments and said the ad was no longer being broadcast and they had no plans to run it again.

GCap Media, who responded on behalf of the radio stations 2Ten FM and Ocean FM, said they checked the content of all ads before broadcasting them. They said they believed the content of the ad was suitable for broadcast and did not breach the Code. They said they had not thought that the ad contained sexual innuendo; rather it was a specific reference to Ocado customers not wanting to spend a lot on their shopping.

Assessment

Not upheld

The ASA noted the ad was about saving money and it contained some sexual references throughout as well as in the last line. However, we noted the sexual references were not explicit and we considered that the sexual innuendo in the last line was unlikely to be understood by all listeners, especially younger listeners. Although we noted some listeners had found the ad distasteful, we considered that it was unlikely to cause serious or general offence.

We investigated the ad under CAP (Broadcast) Radio Advertising Standards Code section 2 rule 9 (Good taste, decency and offence to public feeling) but did not find it in breach.

Action

No further action required.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Broadcast)