ASA Adjudication on Ministry of Sound Recordings Ltd

Ad

A TV ad, for a mobile download, featured extracts from a music video by HTwo0, featuring Platnum, for a track titled "What's it gonna be". The ad showed a group of men and women dressed in school uniforms dancing in front of a school. One of the women was shown performing a striptease in a classroom for one of the men. She was wearing a lacy red bra and pants under her uniform. The voice-over stated "HTwoO and Platnum bring you their massive anthem 'What's it gonna be'. Get the video clip on your mobile now ... Download it now. In shops Monday."

The ad was cleared by The Hits channel without a timing restriction.

Issue

Two viewers challenged whether the ad, shown at 8am on a Sunday and 4.30pm on a Thursday, was appropriate to be shown at times when children could be watching.

BCAP TV Code

BCAP TV Scheduling Code

Response

Ministry of Sound Recordings said they had no plans to use the ad again.

Box Television trading as The Hits (The Hits) said the ad was no longer being broadcast and it was not their intention to cause offence.  They explained that the ad was edited and cleared by them and featured sequences from the music video which was broadcast across all their channels.  The Hits pointed out that a complaint had been made to Ofcom about the content of the video and that the complaint was not upheld.  They therefore considered that the content was appropriate to use in an ad and believed the sequences used were unlikely to cause harm or distress to their viewers.

Assessment

Upheld

The ASA noted Ministry of Sound Recordings had no plans to use the ad again. We understood that The Hits considered the content of the music video suitable for use in advertising because the video was broadcast across all their channels and their audience would have already seen it in that form.  We noted the ad was created from sequences used in the music video and understood that Ofcom had investigated and not upheld complaints under its Code about the acceptability of the video's content as programming material.  

We noted the complainants saw the ad at different times and on different dates. We checked the Broadcasters' Audience Research Board (BARB) figures for the different times and noted a high proportion of children were watching on the Sunday morning but not on the Thursday afternoon.

We considered that the ad featured sexually provocative content; the woman, dressed in sexy red underwear, appeared to be performing a striptease for the benefit of the male who was watching her.  Although we did not consider that the ad would cause harm or distress to viewers, we did consider that it was inappropriate to be seen by younger children and therefore considered that an 'ex-kids' restriction would have been more appropriate.  Although we noted the music videos broadcast on The Hits were not programmes made for or specifically targeted at children, we noted a high proportion of children were watching on the Sunday morning.  We considered that the programming material was of particular appeal to children and concluded that The Hits should have taken more care with the scheduling of the ad, for example through well-considered daytime slotting, to minimise the risk of it being seen by children. We reminded The Hits that where the generality of programme content might reasonably be expected to be of particular appeal to children, then it was unlikely that they could carry, at any time, advertising that required a separation from programmes of interest to children and young people.  

The ad breached CAP (Broadcast) TV Advertising Standards Code rules 7.4.7 (Use of scheduling restrictions) and CAP (Broadcast) Rules on the Scheduling of TV Advertisements rule 4.2.3 (Treatments unsuitable from children).

Action

We noted there were no plans to use the ad again but reminded The Hits of the importance of applying appropriate scheduling restrictions to ads that were inappropriate to be seen by children.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Broadcast)