Legal Research

ASA: The Bare Tits Project

By scott

Not content with pissing of Ofcom, it now seems Bang Media have also fallen foul to the ASA too.

A TV ad, broadcast at 6.40am on Tease me 2, featured mock documentary footage titled “The Bare Tits Project”, in a parody of the film, the Blair Witch Project. The clips featured, in the ASA’s words, ‘three women, who were frequently topless, in a woodland setting’.

To be fair to Band Media, they did put their hand up (Oo-er missus) and admit it was ‘broadcast unintentionally due to an operator error and was not scheduled to air outside of the watershed.’ Thet then added their usual BUT , as it was broadcast on an adult entertainment channel in the Adult Section of the Sky Electronic Programme Guide (EPG), it was unlikely to cause offense whenever it was broadcast.

The ASA, of course, disagreed. “We considered that some viewers were likely to be offended by it but that the offence was unlikely to be serious or widespread if appropriately scheduled. We nevertheless noted the viewer had seen the ad in the morning and furthermore, the channel was unencrypted. For those reasons, we considered that the content of the ad was likely to cause serious or widespread offence and, because it was a premium rate text service of a sexual nature, should have been restricted to encrypted elements of adult entertainment channels.”

The ASA’s sex work for the week didn’t end their either. They also slapped Spearmint Rhino’s (SR) wrists for a digital outdoor poster for a lapdancing club, stated “SPEARMINT RHINO GENTLEMEN’S CLUB LONDON. Back 2 School Party. Come see our Sexy Schoolgirl Staff & Entertainers”. The ad showed a woman dressed in a grey V-neck jumper, school tie and a white shirt.

Needless to say SR didn’t see anything wrong with the ad. The ASA however ‘considered that the image of a woman dressed in school uniform together with the claims “come see our sexy schoolgirl staff and entertainers” and “back to school party” appeared to link teenage girls with sexually provocative behaviour.’

I hope the people who run ’school disco’ don’t use ads anywhere.

Still, it was better news for the people from Isklar and their tv ad, for bottled mineral water, which showed a woman from the waist up to her neck, dressed in a white T-shirt, holding a bottle of water. She then opened the bottle and her nipples became erect and visible through her T-shirt. She looked down at her nipples and on-screen text stated “pure glacier”.

The ASA rejected the complaint that the ad was offensive and objectified women, and ‘noted that the ad showed a natural response to being cold and that no nudity was shown. We considered that the context was clear and the connection between drinking the water and the erect nipples was likely to be understood by viewers. Whilst we acknowledged that some viewers might find the depiction of erect nipples distasteful, given the context of the ad, we considered that it was unlikely to be seen as degrading or objectifying women.’

Full post as published by Information Overload on November 10, 2010 (boomark / email).