The Advertising Bureau found the image contravened advertising standards, which specify that issues of sex, sexuality and nudity be treated with sensitivity and stated that the image “did employ sexual appeal in a manner which is exploitative and degrading”.
The board has also upheld a complaint against Universal Studios for an online video clip to promote the new film A Million Ways to Die in the West.
The clip, which featured on Ninemsn prior to online content for reality television show The Voice, showed a number of scenes from the film, including a scene where a woman appears to flash her genitals at a man and a scene in which oral sex is implied using silhouetted figures.
A complaint received by the bureau said The Voice viewers were not able to skip the ad, which contained “sexually offensive content”. “No warning was given [and] it is completely unacceptable for children,” said the complainant.
Similar to its ruling regarding the Mardi Gras postcard, the ad standards board found the ad “did not treat the issue of sex, sexuality and nudity with sensitivity to the relevant audience” as viewers were unable to opt-out of seeing the clip and it was placed prior to a television show that appeals to families and children.
In particular, the board found the scene using silhouetted figures amounted to “an overall depiction of a sexual act which most members of the community would find inappropriate”.
While Universal Studios defended the ad, which it said had been “planned to be demographically targeted towards people aged 16-39 years”, it has since pulled the ad in response to the complaint and the advertising watchdog’s ruling.
Dr Lauren Rosewarne from the University of Melbourne told SmartCompany free postcards and online advertising are difficult forms of advertising to regulate.
“Postcards are much like the free posters you see in public spaces, so it’s a bit of a free-for-all,” says Rosewarne, who says the “underground nature of the distribution” of the advertising material means consumers are more likely to see racier images.
“It’s pretty much impossible to police and it can also be difficult for companies to regulate how their marketers are distributing the material,” says Rosewarne, who adds that it can also be difficult to specify who is being targeted by such material. “This advertising is quite transitory,” she says.
However, Rosewarne says the imagery used in the Mardi Gras postcard is indicative of a more general trend for all forms of media “daring to portray more taboo sexual topics”.
The online advertisement from Universal Studios also highlights the difficulty in regulating online advertising, says Rosewarne.
“This space is largely unregulated and so it very much depends on the publics’ complaints process,” says Rosewarne. “So this case could be seen as an example of that process working.”
Rosewarne says it is unlikely the Universal Studios ad would have been able to be broadcast during the actual screening of the The Voice, but because the content can be accessed online at any time, there was a “mismatch” between the intended audience of the show and the intended audience of the advertisement.
While Rosewarne says it is much harder to police online advertising, she says it should be possible for media outlets to match the advertising they carry with the content they are producing.
“It highlights a new problem but it is the same with a lot of technological developments—it takes time to catch up,” says Rosewarne.
While the advertising watchdog took particular issue with the accessibility of these ads to children, Rosewarne says “there would never be enough legislation to prevent a child from seeing inappropriate material”.
“The reality is that the Mardi Gras is probably not an event for children and they were probably not targeting children with the postcard,” says Rosewarne.
Instead, Rosewarne says this type of advertising highlights a need for parents to be educating their children about what types of advertising images they may encounter.
Editor
Eloise is an experienced business journalist and editor, who has held senior editorial roles at SmartCompany since 2014. Prior to joining SmartCompany, Eloise was news editor at Books+Publishing, the trade press for the Australian book industry. Eloise has degrees in media and communications, marketing and business management, and political science. You can follow her on LinkedIn, and Twitter at @ellykeating.
