Ad description
A Video on Demand (VOD) ad for Wrigley’s Extra chewing gum, seen on Channel Four On Demand during Lego Masters on 10 and 12 November 2018, featured a young couple in a bedroom kissing on a bed. There was a knock on the door and the girl said “It’s my dad”. The girl got dressed and the boy chewed gum while still in his boxer shorts. He opened the door to the girl’s parents and introduced himself.
Issue
Two complainants challenged whether the ad was inappropriately placed during a programme likely to appeal to children under 16.
Response
Mars Wrigley Confectionery UK Ltd t/a Wrigleys referred to a previous longer version of the ad which included an opening scene of the couple undressing as they were kissing. Wrigleys said they used that first edit of the ad in accordance with an ex-kids scheduling restriction. On receipt of notification of the complaints, they requested that Clearcast apply a scheduling restriction to the revised ad, but Clearcast did not believe that was necessary.
Channel 4, the VOD service provider, said they understood there were two versions of the ad produced for Wrigley’s Extra and the original ad was given an ex-kids timing restriction from Clearcast. The revised ad was a non-restricted version of the original ad, which expressly omitted the scenes which had given rise to the restriction, in order to ensure compliance with the Code. It was therefore approved and required no restrictions.
Channel 4 said that as part of their standard procedure, the programme Lego Masters was assessed with regards to Audience Indexing in order to ascertain its likely appeal to children and young people. A restriction was placed at programme level to prevent restricted ads being served in or around the programme. Therefore only non-restricted ads could be served, which the version of the ad seen by the complainants was. They said they believed their programme restrictions were appropriate and they blocked the original version of the ad from being served during Lego Masters.
Clearcast said that they did not believe the ad required a restriction because it did not depict anything overtly sexual. The scene showed a consenting couple kissing on a bed, supposedly in a university dorm bedroom and they were interrupted, but not doing anything sexual and it went no further than them kissing. The father in the end readily shook his daughters’ boyfriend’s hand and smiled. They said they did not believe that children under age 16 would be offended, shocked or exposed to anything harmful.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA noted that the ad showed a topless man and a woman kissing on a bed before being interrupted. We considered that the ad did not contain any sexually explicit content, but that it was sexually suggestive and that some viewers may therefore have found it distasteful for general viewing. We also considered that younger children would be less able to understand the scenario than older children, and that the sexual nature of the ad made it unsuitable for them.
The ad appeared during the programme Lego Masters which the Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board (BARB) data showed was likely to be of particular appeal to children. We considered the ad should not have been placed around VOD programming that was likely to be viewed by young children.
We therefore concluded that the ad had been irresponsibly placed and breached the Code.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 1.3 1.3 Marketing communications must be prepared with a sense of responsibility to consumers and to society. (Responsible advertising).
Action
We told Mars Wrigley Confectionery UK Ltd and Channel 4 to ensure that in future they responsibly placed ads around VOD programming likely to have particular appeal to children.
