The most complained about ad of 2011 is back
The most complained about ad campaign of 2011 has returned to Queensland.
The Rip & Roll safe gay sex campaign, which last year featured two gay men embracing and holding a condom, received a torrent of complaints last year – mostly from religious group the Australian Christian Lobby.
But the campaign has returned to Queensland with a new creative execution – this time three men holding a condom.
The new campaign is running in 35 bus shelters in inner Brisbane and will also run on billboards at Surfers Paradise, Townsville, Cairns, Capalaba in Brisbane’s east and Albion in Brisbane’s north.
Complaints from the previous campaign pressured outdoor company AdShel into taking the posters down, and the company was subsequently barracked for homophobia by protest groups.
The campaign received 222 complaints, more than any other campaign in 2011.
Health Communities executive director Paul Martin told AAP: “We’ve designed the advert to be as subtle as possible. Last year we didn’t think there was any reason for the ACL to get upset and this year we don’t think so either. But what gets them going, who knows?”
The execution is irrelevant, as far as ACL and their kin are concerned. They will complain anyway, purely because of the subject matter. (If anything, they’ll probably argue that the more “subtle” treatment is deliberately covert – you know, those sneaky gays and their sneaky “gay agenda” )
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Last year’s ad was much nicer – sylish in fact – but fisting and threesomes are probably more acceptable to the ACL I guess.
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Good ol christians and queenslanders, we can always count on them for bigotry, sexism, and other xenophobic endeavours. I’m sure Tony Abbott must be a closet queenslander……
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You go to Canberra and ask the owners of the “red light hotels” when is their busiest time is?
Could it be when the religious circus is in town..?
Mary was a virgin? Pull the other one!
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The message and branding is direct without being overtly sexual. Although, the 2011 execution works better with an amorous “protect your lover” theme, despite the QR code inclusion in 2012.
I’d like to know exactly what the critics complained about – I’ve seen a lot more offensive overtly sexual (hetero-charged) ads.
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Well what more can you expect from a group that hides its paedophile priests and believes in a big cohuna in the sky?
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Wow, amazing the bigotry, inaccurate generalisations, hatred and bile that gets aimed towards anyone who has an opinion different to your own, isn’t it.
Shame.
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MattP is that comment directed at the critisism of the ACL? of at the ACL themselves who are most deserving of it?
The ACL tries to derail any progression of gay rights at any possible opportunity. And they dont object to playing dirty. ie: copy and pasting the same complaint for a campaign claiming its from different sources.
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Sometimes compromise can make things better – taking the best elements if multiple ideas and making something better than the sum of its parts.
Unfortunately, that only works when one of the ideas isn’t homophobic.
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Clutches pearls! Won’t someone please think of the children?!?
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