Mark Bouris Yellow Brick Road ad to face watchdog ruling on super slapping
The Ad Standards Board is investigating a number of complaints about an ad for Mark Bouris’ financial services company Yellow Brick Road which features people being slapped.
Bouris, who fronts The Celebrity Apprentice on Nine, features in the ad which urges “Give someone a super slap”.
The ad has triggered between 10 and 20 complaints to the ASB from people who fear it could trigger copycat behaviour. The ASB has told Mumbrella it will rule on the ad within a fortnight.
The ad – created by DCB Advertising – begins with a baby slapping his mother while Bouris looks on, and ends with an older woman slapping a young man in the face.
In the ad, Bouris explains to the camera that Australia needs a “wake up call” when it comes to superannuation.
The Ad Standard Board told Mumbrella: “The complaints we’ve received have all been in relation to the nature of the slapping in the ads. The Yellow Brick Road superannuation ads are currently on the agenda. The board will review it and it will be resolved in a fortnight.”
A series of ads in the UK for soft drink Tango in the early 90s featured a man being slapped in the face with the message “You know when you’ve been Tango’d”.
The Tango ad was withdrawn after being blamed for an epidemic of face-slapping in school playgrounds.
UPDATE:
Brad Seymour, head of marketing for YBR, said the company had received some complaints about the ad. He said the complaints meant the company would review the content of the ad if the decision to air it again later this year was made.
“There has been a mixed response,” he said. “While there have been a handful of complaints about the ad, the majority of people have congratulated us for taking a bold position on superannuation.
“We wanted to create a conversation, and we feel we’ve achieved that goal. The ad was coming to the end of a short three-week campaign and we will probably wrap it up in the next two or three days.
“If we decide to air it again, we will review the content and perhaps remove the slap.”
It says something that I laughed out loud at the baby slapping the mum… not a bad idea but someone needs to be slapped for the execution!
Um, happy slapping was involved in a few murders too:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2.....dralaville
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/ho.....llers.html
I’m more concerned about how the woman gets shoved into the office by her partner…
What if the whole idea is that it’s supposed to be funny, and that they actually want you to laugh at the baby slapping the mum, Marie?… Wouldn’t that make the execution effective?
After seeing so many boring/ strange ads on TV lately, I actually thought this was quite a funny twist as the people slapping are not who you expect! I laughed out loud. But then again I AM starting from a position of liking Bouris to start with!
I can’t stand this ad. I fail to see how, with so much violent crime in our society, anybody slapping anyone is funny.
It would be funny to see the kid slapping Bouris for letting this go to air.
It should be the other 99% of super adverts that get pulled up by the authorities for boring people to death….