Warning – contains strong language
17 August 2006
Research commissioned by the ASA and other regulators and published in the report Delete Expletives asked the public which words they found offensive.
What’s in a word? Well, when it comes to deciding whether it is likely to offend people, quite a lot.
And that is what the ASA had to consider recently when it received 36 complaints about a TV ad by the Australian Tourist Board. The tagline “So where the bloody hell are you?” provoked viewers to complain, saying they were offended by the use of swearing and concerned about its impact on children.
The BACC originally said the ad should not be aired around programmes of particular appeal to children; but the ASA adjudication went further, ruling that the ad should not be broadcast before 9.00pm.
Having said all that, a research report commissioned in part by the ASA, Delete Expletives?, suggests that most members of the public think “bloody” is relatively mild language. Only 14% of those asked considered “bloody” to be severe (3% very severe and 11% fairly severe); more than half thought it was mild and nearly a third thought it wasn’t swearing at all.
So, if only 14% of people think it is offensive, how do you decide whether “bloody” is likely to cause serious or widespread offence in an ad? Although it is true that context counts, the unpredictability of what is said in an ad means that viewers are not prepared for swear words: they cannot decide to switch over before it happens, because no bad language warnings, such as the ones that come before programmes, exist for ads. Similar reasoning led the ASA to uphold complaints in 2002, after Telewest put up posters across the country with the headline “Stay on the bloody phone!” Click here to read the adjudication.
According to the “Delete Expletives?” report, around 90% of people think that offensive language should not be used in advertising at all. That seems pretty self-evident. But how do you determine what is and what is not offensive? After all, different people have different opinions. The best advice we can give you is: for non-broadcast ads, ask the CAP Copy Advice team; for radio ads, ask the RACC and, for TV ads, ask the BACC.