Life jacket company censured for harrowing ad featuring screaming woman and drowning child
A life jacket company has fallen foul of the ad watchdog for a TV ad depicting the sound of a child drowning which the Ad Standards Board ruled was presenting violence in a manner not justifiable in the context of the product advertised.
The ad, promoting a EBBS life jacket, featured a splash, followed by a woman’s scream and a child’s voice whispering desperately “help me”, while a voiceover gives statistics on the number of children who drown each year, with the only visuals is a heart rate monitor and the statistics.
Complaints to the board argued the TV spot was “fear mongering”, and it was irresponsible to promote a product in a way that resembled a community service announcement or government ad.“If it was a government announcement, then a heavy hitting ad is justified but I’ve been forced to watch this unbelievably tragic ad over and over, and every single time I feel stressed and sickened.
“This ad is too distressing for words, it is fear mongering and shouldn’t be allowed on free to air TV.
“Please remove this ad. Surely the advertiser can come up with a better way to impart their message and get people on board to buying their product or service. MY son assumed that the statistics displayed were Australian, and that they were government figures /a government warning ad. We needed to look up the Australian statistics to show him the number in Australia was actually less than 40 in 2013, and it was advertising a product.”
In its ruling, the board noted that the ad “is not a community awareness campaign but is for a commercial company advertising a life-saving product”.
It also noted that when viewers hear the woman screaming the text on screen reads “Don’t let your child become another drowning statistic” and considered that this implies that the woman is screaming because her child has just died.
As the board considered that the sound of the woman screaming would be distressing to both children and adults, and that in the context of an ad for a specific product rather than as a community awareness message about drowning, the ad depicted a level of disproportionate violence and was “likely to cause alarm and distress to some members of the community”.
The complaint was upheld.
Miranda Ward
Miranda Ward worked for Mumbrella from 2013 to 2017, eventually becoming deputy editor. Miranda joined Mumbrella in September 2013 from Sky News.
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if you think this ad is distressing, just wait till your child drowns, that’s much more distressing
by it’s very nature a lifejacket ad has to appear to be a CSA
if they govt could afford to tell every idiotic parent how to protect their children, it would
but it can’t
i’ve had a gutful of ditzy types objecting ads which dare to explain the harsh realities of life
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