Background
Summary of Council decision:
Two issues were investigated, of which one was Upheld and one was Not upheld.
Ad description
A Video on Demand (VOD) and YouTube ad for Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, a video game, seen in November 2025.
a. The VOD ad opened up with a scene at an airport security check with superimposed text on the bottom left of the screen that stated, “SECURING THE SKIES”. A security officer asked, “Where are the other guys?” to which another female security officer responded, “They’re off playing the new Call of Duty: Black Ops 7. We’re the replacers.” A male member of the public was then shown to be passing through the metal detector. A male security officer said, “You’ve been randomly selected to be manhandled – face the wall!” and turned the man around. The female security officer was then shown to be licking her teeth while picking up a prescription container and shaking it, before showing it to the male officer who winked back at her. The male officer then told the man, “I’m gonna need you to remove your clothes, everything but the shoes.” The woman then put on a pair of gloves and said, “Time for the puppet show!” A post-credit scene showed the male officer putting a hand-held metal detector in the man’s mouth and said, “Bite down on this, she’s going in dry.”
b. The YouTube ad contained the same content as ad (a).
Issue
- Nine complainants, who believed that the ad trivialised sexual violence, challenged whether the ad was irresponsible and offensive.
- Two complainants, who believed that the ad encouraged or condoned drug use, challenged whether the ad was irresponsible.
Response
1. & 2. Activision Blizzard UK Ltd t/a Call of Duty said that the ad promoted the 18-rated video game “Call of Duty: Black Ops 7” and was therefore targeted at adult audiences only, who had a higher tolerance for irreverent or exaggerated humour. The ad had been reviewed by Clearcast and approved with an “ex-kids” timing restriction and was not broadcast during or around children’s programming or content likely to appeal to under-16s. They said audience expectation and targeting were material considerations in assessing potential breaches.
They noted that the ad depicted a deliberately implausible, parodic scenario that bore no resemblance to real airport security procedures. In particular, the security guards were replaced by suited “Replacers” so the guards could play a video game. Further, the “Replacers” were not in uniform and were asked by the supervisor who they were, thus indicating that their presence at the security checkpoint was unorthodox. The “Replacer” mimicked the beeping of an instrument while scanning, which was acknowledged by the person being searched as strange behaviour. Lastly, the strip search would ordinarily occur in a private room and not at the public area of the checkpoint. They believed that the above elements painted the “Replacers” as incompetent impostors, which viewers would interpret as comedic rather than a realistic or accurate situation. They said that previous ASA rulings recognised that ads containing obviously absurd or parodied scenarios reduced the likelihood of being interpreted literally or being viewed as behaviour to emulate.
Regarding the sexual references, they said that the ad in question did not sexualise the act of performing searches and contained no implication that the acts were sexual in nature. They said the humour, including the “bite down” line, referred to discomfort rather than sex, and that the person remained clothed and in the same checkpoint setting, which they said underlined that no strip search or nudity occurred. They said that even if some viewers inferred innuendo, the ad contained no explicit content or objectifying imagery. They also said the searched individual appeared bewildered rather than distressed, supporting a comedic tone rather than harm or abuse. They said that the ad did not depict sexual violence or an invasive strip search, and there was no indication the characters gained sexual gratification. They added that the “Replacers” were depicted as absurd caricatures whose incompetence and inappropriateness were the basis of the humour, not role models.
In relation to drug references, they said the ad briefly showed an unknown prescription medication but did not depict illegal drugs or misuse of prescription medication. Viewers could interpret the characters as either amused or intending to confiscate it, rather than to misuse it. They said that, even if the scene was found to have suggested misuse, the characters were clearly portrayed as incompetent and not to be copied, and the exaggerated, public and farcical nature of the scene signalled comedy.
Overall, they did not consider that the content was likely to cause serious or widespread offence, due to the adult-only targeting and scheduling restriction, comedic framing, and absence of explicit sexual or drug acts.
ITV said that they mandated Clearcast to pre-clear advertising published on ITV on-demand services. They provided a clock number for the ad in question and said that it was approved by Clearcast with an “ex-kids” scheduling restriction. They confirmed that they applied an enhanced restriction of “ex-kids” and “family” content across their platforms.
Channel 5 said they complied with Clearcast’s scheduling restrictions. They agreed with Clearcast’s response to the ASA and believed that, with the restrictions in place, the ad was not offensive or irresponsible. They explained that the “Replacer” was a recurring character in Call of Duty: Black Ops ad campaigns, and that the campaign used humour where the character filled in for people so they could play the game. The ad in question featured stand-up comedian Nikki Glaser playing an airport security officer alongside Peter Stormare, who was shown to be telling a passenger that he had been “randomly selected to be manhandled”. They said this played on a long-established comedic stereotype about the officious nature of US airport security, and that the scene was clearly exaggerated for comic effect that the intended audience would understand.
Clearcast confirmed that they believed an “ex-kids” timing restriction, as well as an equivalent VOD restriction, would be appropriate to keep the subject matter away from young viewers. While they accepted that some viewers may have found the ad to be distasteful, they felt that, on balance, it was unlikely to cause serious or widespread offence.
Assessment
1. Upheld
The CAP Code stated that marketing communications must be prepared with a sense of responsibility to consumers and to society, and that ads must not contain anything that was likely to cause serious or widespread offence.
The ASA understood that the ad depicted a non-consensual, invasive search of a man passing through airport security. After passing through the metal detector, the man is told that he had been randomly selected to be “manhandled”, a term that suggested a degree of deliberate rough handling which went beyond a security check. He was then ordered to “face the wall”, as he was forcibly turned around by the officer. The man was then instructed to remove “everything but the shoes”, as the female officer was heard saying “Time for the puppet show!”, which we considered would be understood as a reference to an intrusive body cavity search, and that the officer was treating the search as a source of entertainment. At the end of the ad, the male officer forcibly placed a hand-held metal detector in the man’s mouth and said, “Bite down on this, she’s going in dry”, which we considered clearly alluded to penetration and the anticipated pain of the man, with the placement of the metal detector in the man’s mouth with the reference to “bite down” implying a way of being distracted from the imminent pain.
We considered that most viewers would understand the ad was intended to be humorous because the conduct shown was exaggerated and at odds with a genuine airport security screening. We also acknowledged that the ad did not include explicit imagery and the man remained clothed for the duration of the ad. However, we noted that the humour in the ad was generated by the humiliation and implied threat of painful, non-consensual penetration of the man, an act associated with sexual violence. In addition, we considered the officers’ confident and joking demeanour presented this in a humorous manner.
Because the ad alluded to non-consensual penetration, and framed it as an entertaining scenario, we considered that the ad trivialised sexual violence and was therefore irresponsible and offensive.
On that point, the ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 1.3 (Social responsibility) and 4.1 (Harm and offence).
2. Not Upheld
The ad further depicted the female officer picking up the man’s prescription medication container. As she held the medication bottle up to the other officer, she smiled widely and licked her teeth, to which he responded with a wink.
We considered that some viewers might have inferred from this interaction that the officers were colluding to confiscate the medication and that they were excited about finding it, because they intended to misuse it. However, we noted that this shot only appeared fleetingly in the ad, the nature of the medication was unclear and the interaction between the officers was ambiguous. Within the broader context of the passenger’s humiliation, we considered that some viewers would be left unsure of what the interaction was or interpret the scene as the officers noticing and being amused by the unidentified medication. We therefore considered that some viewers would have understood it as a reference to the overall theme of the security officers’ lack of professionalism, rather than implying any improper use of medication.
Overall, we considered that the ad was unlikely to be understood as encouraging or condoning drug use and therefore concluded that it was not irresponsible on that basis.
On that point, we investigated the ad under CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 1.3 (Social responsibility) but did not find it in breach.
Action
The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told Activision Blizzard UK Ltd t/a Call of Duty to ensure that their ads were socially responsible and did not cause serious offence, for example by trivialising sexual violence.
