ASA Adjudication on Reed Online

Ad

A radio ad, for a recruitment website, featured a man speaking to his boss who responded angrily and loudly in German. The voice-over said "Boss a bit of a tyrant? Find your perfect boss on the UK's biggest job site ...".

Issue

Thirteen listeners believed the ad was offensive to Germans, because it used an outdated stereotype and implied all Germans were tyrants.

BCAP Radio Code

Response

Reed Online Ltd (Reed) did not comment on the complaints.

The Radio Advertising Clearance Centre (RACC) believed most listeners would regard the scenario as humorous and inoffensive and were likely to understand that the ranting boss was a tyrant, because he responded angrily to his colleague rather than in a calm way.  The RACC said the character was a generic "German-sounding orator", which they believed was a well established type in comedy culture, but they did not believe the mock angry conversation, when heard alongside the phrase "Boss a bit of a tyrant?", implied that all Germans were tyrants.  The RACC said they did not regard the German people as a minority group, as defined by the CAP (Broadcast) Radio Advertising Standards Code, or that the scenario would be seen as a stereotype likely to cause general or serious offence to German people.

Assessment

Upheld

The ASA acknowledged that the use of stereotypes was an inevitable part of establishing a character in a short radio ad, but nonetheless considered that such stereotypes should not perpetuate damaging misconceptions.   We noted the ad used a German speaker, rather than someone speaking English, to portray the boss as "a bit of a tyrant" and the humour derived from a stereotype at the expense of German people.  We considered that the portrayal suggested that German people were more likely to be unreasonable or aggressive to others.  

We concluded that, given the extreme reaction and aggressive tone of the German speaking boss, the ad reinforced a negative and outdated cultural stereotype of German people as overpowering and tyrannical and therefore the ad had the potential to cause serious offence to some listeners.

The ad breached CAP (Broadcast) Radio Advertising Standards Code Section 2 rule 9 (Good taste and decency).

Action

The ad must not be broadcast again in its current form.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Broadcast)