ASA Adjudication on Tombola (Alderney) Ltd

Ad

A TV ad, for a bingo website, showed a white man wearing a dinner suit and a black man in a floral shirt; they sat by a fire on a beach. The black man was playing a ukulele and repeated, in song, everything the white man said: “If you sign up this month to tombola.co.uk; we will match your first deposit up to twenty five pounds; thank you Tito; ola tombola”.

Issue

Two complainants challenged whether the ad was likely to cause serious or widespread offence, because they believed it presented a negative racial stereotype.

BCAP TV Code

Response

Tombola said they did not intend to use the ad again in future.

Clearcast said when they had reviewed the ad on more than one occasion, it did not occur to them that it might be interpreted to present a negative racial stereotype. They said the ad was set on the fictional tropical island Tombola, where the man wearing the suit was a host and the man playing the ukulele, Tito, was a member of staff; they considered the repetition in the ad was a simple and light-hearted way of reinforcing the offer being promoted and said the characters were intended to reflect the friendly and welcoming nature of the Tombola website. They pointed out that the host did not talk down to Tito or treat him badly in any way; in addition, he thanked him for repeating the sales message. They said the ad was not meant to be offensive and they believed it did not present a negative racial stereotype.

Assessment

Upheld

The ASA considered the humour in the ad was, in part, derived from the scenario of one character playing the ukulele whilst repeatedly singing the message delivered by the other. We considered, however, the relationship between the two characters was defined as the power of the white man over the black man, in which the white man was wearing a suit whereas the black man was casually dressed and was portrayed as less intelligent in that he repeated everything the white man said even to the extent of repeating " ... thank you Tito ... ". We noted that he seemed to look to the white man for reassurance or instruction suggesting that he lacked the confidence or intellect to behave otherwise. We considered that the ad could be interpreted as humiliating, stigmatising or undermining the standing of the black character and was therefore likely to cause serious offence.

The ad breached CAP (Broadcast) TV Advertising Standards Code rules 6.1 (Offence) and 6.6 (Harmful or negative stereotypes).

Action

The ad must not be broadcast again in its current form. We told Tombola to take care not to present negative racial stereotypes in future.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Broadcast)