Hungry Jack’s ad featuring man being painfully beaten by debt collector is banned
A Hungry Jack’s radio ad featuring a man moaning in pain as he is beaten up by a debt collector has been banned by the advertising watchdog over its depiction of violence.
The ad, created by Clemenger BBDO, was to promote the $5 Hungry Jack’s Stunner Value Meal. The brand argued that the content of the ad was intended to be humorous.
According to the Advertising Standards Board report: “This radio advertisement for the Hungry Jack’s Stunner Value Meal features a man being threatened by another man because he owes someone $5. We can hear sounds as though he is being hit and the man doing the hitting says, “You borrow that kind of money, you gotta be prepared for the consequences”.
But Hungry Jack’s argued that the ad should be cleared because it was slapstick. It said: “The radio commercial promotes Hungry Jack’s ‘Stunner’ value meals by dramatising the value of $5. It depicts a dialogue between a male character (‘Sam’) and a secondary male character, followed by an explanatory monologue. The primary marketing message – the value of $5 has never been worth so much at Hungry Jack’s – is articulated in this monologue. In this context, the narrative is not intended to be understood literally. Rather, the narrative appropriates a familiar ‘debt collector’ trope as depicted in popular film and television in order to communicate this primary marketing message.
“The narrative section of the commercial appropriates the ‘debt collector’ pop cultural reference for comic impact, insofar as the debt in question ($5) is far smaller than a reasonable person would expect to incite such an incident.”
But the ASB ruled: “The Board noted that the advertisement is clearly meant to sound as though a man is being punched more than once by another man who has been hired as a debt collector by his mate to scare him into giving back the money he owes. The Board considered that most members of the community would understand that the advertisement is fiction and was not really a depiction of a man being beaten up.
“The Board considered however that the moaning and pained sounds of the man who has been hit are realistic and he sounds distressed.
“The Board considered that the sound effects were not sufficiently humorous or unreal to mitigate the depiction of hitting or violence.”
