Binge pinged by Ad Standards for ‘gratuitous’ kick to the balls
The Ad Standards Community Panel has upheld complaints made against an ad for Foxtel streaming service, Binge, for unnecessary violence.
Part of Binge’s ‘Summer Range’ campaign from Thinkerbell, the 30 second ad is a montage of various scenes from the Upright television series, with text message bubbles superimposed over each scene. The scene at the centre of the complaint features a woman kicking a man in the testicles.
One complaint sent to the self-regulatory body read: “The content included a clip of a woman kicking a man in the groin, with reaction bubbles around it saying “wow”, “amazing” etc. This is a blatant display of the glorification of gendered based violence. Never would you see the opposite occur for a television advertisement, where a man did the same for a woman, especially glorified in a way that is promoting violence and sexism.”
In a response sent to Ad Standards, Foxtel/Binge said the campaign was developed to “drive awareness of the new television series that were available for consumers to view on Binge over the summer holidays”, asserting that the text message bubbles were meant to “imitate how consumers’ commonly text message their friends and family with live reactions to a television series as they view the content”.
With relation to the issues raised, the Ad Standards Panel investigated whether the spot infringed on the AANA Code of Ethics section 2.1 Discrimination or Vilification, and AANA Code of Ethics 2.3 Violence.
Section 2.1 states that advertising shouldn’t “portray people or depict material in a way which discriminates against or vilifies a person or section of the community on account of race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion, disability, mental illness or political belief”, while Section 2.3 says it shall not “present or portray violence unless it is justifiable in the context of the product or service advertised.”
While the ad was not found to have portrayed material that was discriminatory towards men, the panel did conclude that the ad included an act of violence that was “gratuitous” to the context of the service advertised.
“Overall, the Panel considered that the violent scene was not justifiable in the promotion of a streaming service, which could have used other non-violent scenes to promote its shows.”
Following the upheld complaint, Foxtel confirmed that the advertisement was pulled from circulation amid the initial complaints in mid-January.
Mumbrella contacted Foxtel to comment, but they did not respond in time for publication. Thinkerbell declined to comment when contacted by Mumbrella.
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