Ad watchdog: Dick Smith boat joke ‘insensitive and inappropriate’
A Dick Smith Foods ad featuring a burning boat of asylum seekers has been labelled “insensitive and inappropriate” by the Ad Standards Board, but cleared of racism.
The ad – which also featured repeated use of the phrase “I love Dick” was created for Smith by comedian Dan Ilic for Australia Day.
It featured boat people staggering onto the shore with Smith saying “why else would thousands be trying to get here?”
A complaint to the ASB said: “This contained offensive material where Dick was seen to declare “no wonder everyone’s trying to get here!” in front of images of actors, who I assume were supposed to be asylum seekers arriving on shore with the image of a burning and sinking boat in the background. Please get this racist crap off our screens. It’s offensive and inaccurate.”
Dick Smith Foods responded: “Whilst we understand that the attempted humour and use of satire is certainly not to everyone’s taste, we have received overwhelming public support for the advertisement, with the number of complaints utterly insignificant in comparison to the positive comments received. We believe that the community as a whole is mature and sensible enough to know that (the) scene is a satirical comedy sketch that contains no racist connotations.
“Over the years, Dick Smith Foods and its founder, Dick Smith, have given considerable financial support to organisations that support people seeking asylum in Australia.”
However, although the ASB made clear that members were unhappy with the ad, it said the advertising rules were not broken. It said: ”
“The Board noted that there have been a significant number of boat tragedies in the recent past and considered that to use a burning boat, albeit in a supposedly humorous manner, is insensitive to those who have been affected by such occurrences. The Board strongly agreed that the depiction of the burning boat is insensitive and inappropriate however in the Board’s view it does not discriminate against people on account of race, ethnicity or nationality.”
The ASB also warned off other brands from straying into boat disaster territory saying:
“The Board noted that the overall tone of the advertisement is light hearted and intended to be humorous and considered that whilst it would strongly recommend that Advertisers refrain from using images such as burning boats, in this instance the Board considered that the advertisement did not depict material which discriminated against or vilified any person or section of society.”
The ASB said that the “I love Dick” innuendo was acceptable.
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large. He returned to Mumbrella as Publisher in January 2025
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You would think at his age he would be thinking about his legacy.
What a national disgrace.
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Apart from the boat ppl – its not that bad!
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I think it’s great!
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Get over it. What a pile of unmitigated rubbish turning us into a nanny state. Believe it or not even immigrants and asylum seekers have a sense of humor. Some that live near me thought that this was very funny although they still don’t like Vegemite. Our money is just wasted when an Ad Standards Board has to review something like this. There are a lot of real issues out there why don’t we go look at those.
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It’s an insight based on fact .
All immigrants receive a package of Aussie goods.
His legacy is Dick jokes. I don’t think this will bother him.
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I don’t think Dick Smith has to worry about his ‘legacy’ nor is he worrying about such politically-correct Stepford Wife-mental cases such as the poster (above) whose crayons enabled him/her to call the ad ‘ a national disgrace’. Whatever happened to a free-wheeling sense of humour that used to be the sign of Australians?
“The Board noted that there have been a significant number of boat tragedies in the recent past and considered that to use a burning boat, albeit in a supposedly humorous manner, is insensitive to those who have been affected by such occurrences”
WOW.. I guess we should ban all Bunnings ads and ads on THE BLOCK from Mitre 10 that show drilling and nailing, lest we offend a lot of people who might think it negatively references Jesus’ last big weekend out?
I suppose if Dick Smith does a share offering and calls it a ‘float’ somebody will complain? Then again, if more of those boats floated….
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Still wearing my ‘I Love Dick’ t-shirt with pride!
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It was memorable…
It made an impact…
It’s a relatively low budget, high impact execution.
It’s not classy and it’s very cheeky but it gets us talking. Successful in my view.
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Good ad, good products, good bloke, silly nanny state. Dick 1 Canberra 0.
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People die horrible, unimaginable deaths trying to get into Australia by boat and for those who make it they’re put into indefinite detention for years with no hope of reconciliation where the only way out is often suicide.
To exploit what is for many people a very emotional and political issue like asylum seekers for advertising is risky and dumb, period. Dick goes further though by having a burning boat, evoking memories of the children over board scandal. Dead kids, nice that’ll sell products.
In decades to come ads like these will be talked about as representing the worst of Australians xenophobia and backwards thinking, not for their ‘quirkiness’.
Who the hell thinks of these things?
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@Bobby Galinsky the difference is Bunnings don’t create Jesus being nailed on the cross.
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@Mike – get over it! Have you ever seen any Monty Python like the Catholics versus the Jews football match? What about ABC’s Aunty Jack Show? The Chasers War on Everything? Australian’s have been politically incorrect for a very long time and love it. Bush humor at its best. People die horrible and unimaginable deaths everyday on our roads but I don’t hear you worrying about the AAMI ads depicting stupid car accidents.
I feel for anyone who dies at sea but there is nothing wrong with a sense of humor.
Maybe you need to develop one along with all the other people who senselessly caused money to be wasted reviewing this ad.
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Bobby, I think the nation grew up.
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Sickeningly distasteful,inexcusably ignorant and cynical. I find this ad to be hugely disappointing and I am shocked at Dick Smith’s participation. I did not think that he would ever think that heart-broken and frightened people arriving in dangerous boats, risking their lives to get here,should be fodder for an advertising campaign. It is quite brutally insensitive. What next…arms stretched from the barred windows of a cattle-car with starving Jewish prisoners clambering for a jar of Ozemite?
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Clever ad – but as I rarely watch commercial TV (where have you heard that before?) I have yet to see it.
And why else would they want to come to Australia – to escape Islam?
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Come off it! I can only agree with John Debrincat and Bobby Galinsky.
Having a sense of humour doesn’t make you insensitive. I’d say just the opposite.
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I’m with John D here. I think the others are taking this a bit personally and identifying a fictional ad with ‘real life’ incidents. And yep Jannine, the starving Jewish prisoners clambering for a jar of Ozemite would be something that I certainly would find not quite suitable for TV airtime, but I would still love the humour if the context were correct. And that ad would be something I would send friends (and I am Jewish) with similar humour but of course would not be suitable for holocaust survivors. But then again, they aren’t Ozemite customers…
Comedy is simply ‘tragedy + time’ and contexture. If someone who has never been to New York and didn’t know about 9/11 was at Ground Zero asking “so vere are da Tween Towerz?… that is very funny. If it’s someone trying to make fun of NY residents sensitivity, that would be extremely mean-spirited. Same joke, wrong audience and wrong delivery.
In Dick Smith’s ad, like it or not, it’s not about demeaning asylum seekers, it’s about showing the (ostensibly) lengths people go to, to get his products.
At the end of the day, why can’t we just let people make jokes and if we don’t like them, ignore them or turn them off.
I’m more worried about Libra panty liner “LBL” ads with bright blue menstrual fluid demonstrations and Huggies Napplies with babies peeing bright blue demonstration samples. WTF did women starting bleeding in bright blue and babies peeing bright blue??? I’ve got two kids and been married before and never, EVER, has any of my wives bled blue nor have my kids peed blue.
THAT is what needs to be banned from TV, not humour…
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@Bobby ..
Making fun of people dying trying to reach Australia.
Funny Suitable for TV.
Making fun of people dying in the holocaust.
Not Funny. Not suitable for TV.
Seems like quite the double standard you have there.
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No double standard. Pretty clear from what I set out about context, if you read correctly. The double standard applies when people don’t have the conviction of their thoughts and hide behind “anonymous”.
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nanny state ruling. Give e’m more stick dick!
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Bobby, I can see how you are thinking and I admit that yours is a very 2013 attitude to humour. I think the attitude that “all is fair game” in the world of laughter is erroneous.
I used to love Joan Rivers. I used to love Ricky Gervaise. However, for me, there were two pivotal moments when I decided that each one of them had blatantly and irreversibly over-stepped the mark, a mark that I didn’t know I had drawn in my mind.
I am glad that I have come to the point where laughter and cruelty at anyone’s expense is not acceptable if we wish to nurture a society that values it’s members over the “instant gratification” of a belly laugh at someone’s (painful or humiliating) expense. I am not talking about mother-in-law jokes. I am talking about the kind of jokes that makes an audience squirm. They squirm because they have a conscience and their conscience is telling them that something unpleasant and mean-spirited has been “tarted up” as humour. They squirm because they don’t want to offend the joke-teller but they don’t feel right about laughing. When we accept that everything is up-for-grabs in the comedy department we allow ourselves to become desensitized.
Billy Connolly is someone I find to be very funny. He is of the opinion that anything can be funny yet I am certain that if, for example, one of his babies had been killed by a dingo, he would not appreciate that being the subject of a stand-up comedian’s act.
Please believe me, I am not being precious. I am not a giant wet blanket. I am simply trying to live a kind life and I wish you a happy one too 😀
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Hi Jannine, I love Rivers and Gervais and even I (yes, hard to believe) believe Joan has ‘crossed the line’ in order to remain relevant or noticed–but then again, if we go back to even Don Rickles and some people like that in the 60’s (Richard Pryor, etc) we felt MORTIFIED by their jokes and behaviour……then.
The true comic who pushes the boundaries is the one who remains the pioneer, but it’s always the pioneers who are found dead with arrows in their backs 🙂
Thanks for the note, and we agree to disagree a bit, and the ability to do that freely (and your opinion and mine, are of course, of equal important….unlike ‘anonymous”s 🙂
is a wonderful thing. Which is, probably, why there are very few North Koreans performing in the Melbourne International Comedy Festival….
Cheers and have a great day, and I do agree that Billy Connolly would not appreciate one of his children’s demise at the hands (or paws) of a dingo being the subject of a comedy act… but I would. But not for many many years until after the event of course 🙂
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“Trying to get here,” not “Dying to get here.”
The whirlpool of reaction here is almost overwhelming.
There has also been nebulous comment about “context” and what is and is not funny; the fact is that a bucket of shit can be funny, if the “context” is in focus with the reference.
Can the Holocaust (Shoah) be funny? can any holocaust be funny? When the focus is the Shoah or any other particular holocaust, then the answer must be
NO.
The point that I find interesting is the board of judges, the panel of moral and ethical adjudicators who ultimately decide the “appropriate” or “inappropriate” nature of a work, by guessing at either its intent, or the supposed public reaction to the various interpretations that may or may not be applied.
For my personal taste, the joke is a crude one and it could have worked well by showing a citizenship ceremony or a clip of historic footage from the department of immigration, but that is purely my opinion.
I am always concerned when I hear, or when I see in print, the word “inappropriate” applied to an action or a statement, or coupled with the word “behaviour,” in the form of a moral or social judgement.
They make me as uneasy as ” if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about ” or “If you don’t know, we are not about to tell you. “
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I admire Dick’s goal of selling more Australian-made and Australian-owned goods. I thought the Australia Day ad campaign was largely pretty funny. But making fun of assylum seekers is pretty bad form — in fact it’s pretty awful. Many people have died trying to come to this country. Regardless of what you think of their plight, or the legality of their methods, people are dying – that’s not cause for comedy. Sometimes we can fall into the trap of taking fixed sides on this sort of push-the-boundaries advertising. It’s all very polarising, so people choose to either love it or hate it. I’m taking a more considered view. I think Dick’s advertising is usually funny, but the assylum seeker “joke” doesn’t make me smile. I think it reflects poorly on his judgment.
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