Brisbane Broncos ad banned for showing Sam Thaiday stealing chocolate
An ad featuring members of the Brisbane Broncos helping out in sponsor NRMA’s office has been banned – because player Sam Thaiday is featured pinching chocolate bars from a vending machine.
The NRMA ad, created by the agency Human, was launched at the beginning of May.
But viewers objected to the behaviour of the league players. One vending machine owner complained to the Advertising Standards Board: “Why would they show stealing using so called children’ role models such a Thiaday. I own vending machines theft of product is always a concern.”
The NRMA claimed that Thaiday had already paid for the chocolate, saying: “The humour of the Advertisement is to show in a light hearted manner that the Broncos players are a bit out of place in a typical office environment due to their size, strength and inexperience.
“In one scene, Sam Thaiday is shown jiggling a vending machine to dislodge a chocolate bar that he had purchased which had become stuck. Consistent with the humour of the Advertisement, this action causes numerous chocolate bars to fall out of the machine because of Sam’s size and strength.”
However, the ASB ruled: “The Board considered that there is no suggestion that the player has not paid for one of the products and that there is not necessarily a suggestion of theft. However the Board noted it would not be the case that the man would have paid for the number of product that fell from the machine and that therefore there is a depiction or suggestion of theft.”
And it added: “The image of the man shaking the machine from the top is a depiction of an activity that can cause injury.”
July 12 Update: NRMA Insurance issued a statement saying:
“Our tv ad featuring the Brisbane Broncos working in our call centre is a light-hearted and humorous way to promote NRMA Insurance’s lowest price car insurance/beat it by 10% campaign.
“The humour of the ad is to show, in a light hearted manner, that the Broncos are a bit out of place in a typical office environment.
“In one scene a player is shown jiggling a vending machine to dislodge a chocolate bar he purchased which had become stuck. This causes numerous chocolate bars to fallout of the machine because of the player’s size and strength — consistent with the humour of the ad.
“We were surprised by the Advertising Standards Bureau’s findings however, as soon as we received their ruling, the advertisement was amended. The vending machine scene has been removed and replaced with other footage and the ad is back on air. We certainly did not intend to cause any offence.”
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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Careful Tim
News are probably going to want to steal this story as well.
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CRAP! It’s a bloody commercial. If people are that stupid to think that it is real and act inappropriately based on simple humour then what the heck is the world coming to!!
Does this mean that Batman should be banned because it depicts people jumping off buildings and in a sense ‘commiting suicide’ and hurting the feelings of people who have lost loved ones???
Seriously!!!
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Hmm.. Can someone put a vending machine in our building, so I can steal from it?
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Oh dear, it’s actually funny. I definitely don’t think it’s depicting theft. The ASB are idiots, I don’t think they know what’s suitable for the public at all. As a child I had so many nightmares from the AIDS/HIV Grim Reaper ads in the 80’s/90’s, and I couldn’t understand why. And now I want revenge!
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We’re living in a nanny state. It’s sad when advertising gets reduced to polite behaviour.
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what a stupid ruling, there a lot of losers out there with too much time on their hands me thinks
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this one time, I shook a vending machine to dislodge a packet of chips I had paid for that got stuck on the way down. I’m not very strong so nothing happened. It’s really quite hard to steal from a vending machine these days. right?
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PR Stunt much?
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The world has gone mad.
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i had a whole long thing written, sob-story complaint about whinging complainers. but i suddenly realised i’d become one of them! yikes… bollocks bloody no-sense-of-humour complaint. bollocks bloody no-backbone ruling.
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To the ASB,
Seriously, you have gone to far on this one. If he jumped off a cliff, would you jump off a cliff too. Lets look at all the ads on television that have depicted a scenario that might have a bad influence on viewers, where does it stop.
I didn’t see the bear rug on smiths chips pay for the chips he stole? Are you going to ban that ad, children these days will start thinking its ok to steal chips. Watch out Australia.
ASB – you should be banned from censoring for stealing 5mins of my life to read about your stupid decision.
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I”ve seen the ad and I thought he was nicking them all too. However I didn’t think anything of it. Do I care if a thugby player is stealing chocolate bars from a vending machine in the office of an insurance company I will never use? No, I don’t care. And my children are all girls, and definitely not NRL fans. They don’t even know who the Broncos are and certainly would not be able to shake a vending machine to get chocolate bars out anyway. (My eldest is only 5.)
People seriously complained about that part of the ad? What about the double take that one of the players does when he sees another player wearing a frilly apron as part of the ‘tea lady’ role? I find that far more offensive.
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Give me a break! If anyone wants to put in the diary the date that humour in advertising became illegal, mark down today
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I look forward to seeing this on the Sunday Roast.
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I loved the add especially where Sam was shaking the vending machine it made me laugh every time I saw it.
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When I first saw this, my immediate thought was going to be a linkage between theft and Sam Thaiday being aboriginal.
It’s a good thing they didn’t go down that path, but still surprises me that this wasn’t raised …..
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The ASB really does need an enema.
Roll on with the new code that flicks humourless, complaining, whingeing idiots. The ASB will still need its wings clipped though to stop it choosing to analyse these kinds of ridiculous complaints.
And to you Mr. Vending Machine Owner, I feel very sorry for you and those around you who have to listen to your drivel.
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This is NUTS. Come on Australin do-gooders, you need to get a life. The rest of us want a laugh. Unfortunately, the spot wasn’t really that funny. Let the spot run as it is. I feel our industry is getting very dull. What ever happened to ads entertaining us?
A high profile ad friend came to Sydney from the US last week after 15 years and asked me what are the great TVC’s at the moment. It took me a nano second to reply. Sorry mate, there is nothing on TVC’s that I would count as outstanding. Let’s all ask ourselves… Why?
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What a great Ad! I wish I’d made it! Mr Vending machine owner should hang his head along with the ASB. Probably ran in Underbelly… Ironic?
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How many of us have had a vending machine stick and done EXACTLY the same thing as Sam? I “got it” the first time I saw the commercial. It’s a shame there are brain dead types out there who either didn’t get it or, worse, they DID get it, but still want to start a stink about it.
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I think that it is less credible that (i) you would get a car insurance policy for $563.28 and then (ii) that a rugby league player can do maths that quickly without a calculator, than the claim that Sam Thaiday is stealing chocolates.
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I shake our vending machine all the time, nothing comes out. Though I’m not the size of Thaiday…
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ASB Fail.
I’m drawing the strong belief that their charter is the the Ten Commandments.
Right, I’m off to clean my kitchen with that (World Cup) octopus…
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Stolen by News
http://www.news.com.au/nationa.....5890796293
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They’re slipping though. This time it took them more than 48 hours – they obviously weren’t working the weekend…
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
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Tim – how ethical would it be to slip a typo into your original story, thereby proving where News grabbed it from? Or is it all just fair game?
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News are even using the Mumbrella Youtube page to play the ad.
Perhaps that’s a form of trackback to the original author, sort of…
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CRAP – bring back Sammy!!
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