If you have often wondered how may people
take the time out of their busy lifestyles to complain about TV advertising you
needn’t wonder anymore as the top 10 most complained adverts of 2012 from the
Advertising Standards Agency was released today. The full list of offenders can
be found below but to summarise for those who would rather have it now as
opposed to clicking through to another website The Brand Avenger will provide
you with the list below. Why? Well just because I’m a nice kind of guy.
10) St Johns Ambulance ‘Helpless’ campaign-
144 complaints
9) Kayak ‘Brain Surgery- 189 complaints
7=) Morrisons ‘For your Christmas’- 234
complaints
7=) Kelloggs ‘Crunch Nut Snake’- 234
complaints
6) Paddy Power ‘Ladies day’- 311 complaints
5) Richmond Ham- As nature intended- 371
complaints
4) Channel 4 ‘bigger, fatter, gypsier’- 373
complaints
3) Asda ‘Christmas doesn’t just happen by
magic’- 620 complaints
2) GoCompare ‘Bazooka Sue’ – 797 complaints
1) GoCompare ‘Stuart Pierce advert’- 1,008
complaints
Going through the list there are some
interesting offenders who have managed to upset the masses in 2012. For the purposes of the length of this
article let’s focus on a couple of case studies.
St Johns Ambulance.
It is interested that this advertisement
made the complaints list but it is in there.
St Johns had a clear message they were
looking to convey with this campaign and for all intents and purposes they
achieve that quite well. But the choice
of linking the message to something like cancer, which has impacted so many
families was always going to create a little controversy. This might not have
been a bad thing for St Johns. The advert not only aired in a prime time spot
with 9 million viewers to encourage as many people as possible to watch but it
also generated extra coverage and more exposure through the hype surrounded it
afterwards.
For a message as important as this this was
a smart use of controversial activity to convey a strong brand identity and a
clear message.
Paddy Power
Ladies day was not Paddy Power’s greatest
day. No strangers to using controversial material in their television
advertising and social media tools Paddy Power clearly overstepped the mark on
this one and broadcast networks were quick to pull the material.
Paddy Power continue to push the boat out
with the ‘we hear you campaign’. Whereas the adverts tend to be funny they
always verge on the edge of offense and one has to wonder what objective this
is achieving for the brand. If it is a case of raising awareness and making
sure the brand is at the front of mind when it comes to gambling it appears
this could is working when you consider their rise in pre-tax profits.
Go Compare
The two offending advert can be viewed on
the below link.
Go Compare takes both the biscuit and the
spoils of second place with two television adverts last year. It is interesting
to compare the sheer amount of complaints something like this generated
compared to campaigns like St Johns with a more serious message. I would argue
The Go Compare campaign has been a success for many reasons and is a clear sign
that sometimes offended or annoying a mass audience over a considerable period
of time can lead to rapid returns. Take for example how much profit alone the
jingle has made over the last year.
So an interesting list of offenders for
this year but if you believe that no news is bad news you could argue it was
all money well spent.
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