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Wicked Campers falls foul of ad watchdog for seventh time in 2014

Wicked Campers has been censured by the ad watchdog for the seventh time this year for a slogan painted on its vans.

The Henry Rollins quote “Half of life is fucking up, the other half is dealing with it” was ruled to use language inappropriate for the side of a vehicle.

The Advertising Standards Board regularly rules against Wicked Campers messages, but has little power to change the brand’s behaviour because it does not support the industry’s self regulatory process.

Previous ASB rulings against Wicked Campers this year have included the slogans: “Get out ya tits and we’ll call it quits”, “Fat girls are harder to kidnap“, “Does your asshole ever get jealous of the shit that comes out of your mouth?”,  “Shut the f#ck up Donny“, “God I’m Fucking Awesome” and “I was in fuckin’ Nirvana dude. Dave Grohl“.

Wicked Campers van

Over the years Wicked Campers has also been found to have breached the ASB code on a number of racist, sexist and homophobic messages.

chuck norris wicked camper

 

The most recent complaint to the ASB read: “I had children in my car who can read. The word ‘fucking’ is offensive and my children know that it is not appropriate for reasonable people to use the word in public. They were frightened to see it on a vehicle and wanted to call the police.”

Wicked Campers no longer responds to complaints to the ASB, which was noted by the board during the ruling.

The board said: “Most members of the community would agree that this is not appropriate language when used in the context of a slogan on the side of a moving vehicle able to be seen by a broad audience”. The complaint was upheld.

Miranda Ward

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