The band Massive Attack have been banned from advertising their new album Heligoland on the London Underground because it looked like graffiti.

Robert 3D Del Naja who had to redesign his artwork for stations, said: They won't allow anything on the Tube that looks like street art.

They want us to remove all drips and fuzz. It's the most absurd censorship I've ever seen.

A poster, for an animal rights campaign group, featured a picture of Steven Barker. Text next to the picture stated Steven Barker: Animal Abuser, Baby Abuser, Rapist. PEOPLE WHO ARE VIOLENT TOWARDS ANIMALS RARELY STOP THERE. Further text underneath stated Report cruelty to animals immediately PeTA. Issue

A complainant challenged whether:

1. the ad was offensive and distressing, used unnecessary shock tactics and exploited the death of Baby P
2. the ad, which was also located in the area where Baby P lived and died, was particularly offensive and distressing to residents of that area.

ASA Assessment:  Upheld

The ASA noted PETA's argument that the purpose of the ad was to inform the public to report animal cruelty in order to prevent future acts of violence towards humans. We considered, however, that advertisers who wished to refer to current or emotive news stories in their marketing should take particular care over how such stories were used, in order to avoid accusations of exploitation or shock tactics. We also considered that they should not cause fear or distress without good reason.

We noted that, although Baby P died in August 2007, his death was a high-profile, emotive case which continued to get extensive press coverage. We acknowledged that some people might therefore find the reference to the Baby P case in the poster exploitative. We considered that the claim and image used in the ad had been used in a shocking way merely to attract attention and that the reason did not justify the means in this case. We therefore also considered that the ad was likely to cause serious offence and distress to some people.

Furthermore, we noted that the poster had appeared in the area where Baby P had lived and died. We considered that the ad was likely to be particularly sensitive for residents of that area, and was likely to cause serious offence and distress to some residents.

We therefore concluded that the ad was in breach of the Code.

A billboard west of Brisbane, which features a bikini clad actress, has been slammed as inappropriate and too rude by the local council.

The billboard advertises Brisbane's 2010 Sexpo event next month.

Ipswich Councillor Trevor Nardi said the billboard was not only a distraction for drivers but too sexual for its busy location and should be taken down immediately.

The Advertising Standards Bureau said yesterday it was yet to receive any objections.

I'm definitely not a prude,...BUT...I don't think we need billboards like this in our face, Cr Nardi said: I don't think it's appropriate and I don't think many people in the community would find it in good taste.

The Sexpo billboard has now been removed by owners Bishopp. It will be relocated in coming days.

A poster for the film Harry Brown was divided in two sections, and featured a teenage girl and two teenage boys in the upper part of the poster. The girl had her arms wrapped tightly around herself and appeared unhappy. Both boys were holding guns; the centre boy looked menacing and the other boy was naked from the waist up. The bottom half of the poster featured a picture of Michael Caine behind a gun target. Text in the centre of the target stated ONE MAN WILL TAKE A STAND.

A complainant challenged whether the ad was offensive and glamorised and condoned gun crime and violent behaviour.

ASA Decision: Not upheld

The ASA noted that the young people featured in the ad were not glamorous or aspirational figures, and that the two guns were not being brandished in a threatening or aggressive manner, but were pointing away from the reader. We recognised that the content of the poster communicated the theme of the film, and we considered that the text ONE MAN WILL TAKE A STAND at the bottom of the ad explained the film's storyline. Whilst we acknowledged that the ad would not be to everyone's taste, we considered that it was unlikely to cause serious or widespread offence, or condone and glamorise gun crime and anti-social behaviour.

A recruitment advert for the Austrian army showing young women chasing a tank for a joy-ride has been axed after outraged feminists went on the offensive.

The advert was commissioned to sex-up the image of the military, which has had trouble in recent years getting men to enlist.

Do you want a joy-ride, ladies? yells a macho member of the tank crew, causing the women to race after the armoured vehicle. The pun in the question was fully intended, admitted the Austrian military.

But feminists were predictably easily offended. Judith Goetz, who is in charge of feminist issues at the Austrian Students' Union, said: It is totally archaic to show such an obviously sexist video when women are part of the Austrian military.

The video opens with a macho-looking man with legs spread wide sitting on the hood of his Audi car surrounded by four young women. He is interrupted in his effort to persuade them to join him for a joy-ride when a tank comes to a screeching halt in front of his car.

A soldier climbs out of the tank's hatch, rubs his hand suggestively along the cannon, jumps down in front of the girls and asks them if they would like to go for a joy-ride in his vehicle instead. The girls screech in excitement and begin to follow him. Then come to the Austrian army. Then you can drive a tank! the soldier says. He speeds away pursued by the shrieking women.

Our clip is so dorky it's brilliant, said Colonel Johann Millonig, of the army's marketing department. But the feminist cyber-war on the high command. So many e-mails were received that defence minister Norbert Darabos asked the army to remove the video from the ministry's website.

A Super Bowl advertisement for Electronic Arts' Dante's Inferno game has fallen victim to CBS censors.

An original version of the ad had utilized the tagline Go to Hell, but that phrase was deemed to over the top for viewers of this Sunday's big game and CBS rejected it. The Hollywood Reporter blog reports that EA will instead substitute the more sedate tagline Hell Awaits instead.

Sara's Secrets/Condoms To Go chain has 12 stores in the conservative state of Texas. It has come up with a couple of knee-slappers for an advertising campaign, including the pictured billboard on I-35 and the TV ad that gave rise to it.

We ran that at the end of last year, explained Sara's Secret VP. We try to make our advertising entertaining and edgy; those are the two words we keep in mind. Because anybody can watch a whole evening of TV and I bet that they cannot recall one commercial, so obviously you've got to do something that will stand out from the noise, and this commercial hits the spot, and the billboards are kind of a follow-up to it.

What we want to do is create advertising that will stir people, he continued. Whether they're stirred because they don't like the advertising or stirred because they find it really funny, this particular combination really hit the spot. Here in Texas, which is a pretty conservative state, the churchgoers certainly give us their opinion, but CBS-11 did a story on it last night, and if you go to the comments underneath it, you'll see that the positive comments are overwhelming compared to the negative ones. People have come to our website and commented, and we're getting more positive comments there too.

The public relations/marketing teams over at Mancrunch.com must be made up of some smart guys and gals. They used CBS's squeamishness over gay kissing to start a media firestorm. There's no such thing as bad publicity!

the banned Mancrunch.com ad is really not that racy. It's just two dudes watchin' the game together… until sparks fly. It's not like the ad shows any actual spit-swapping. If it's family-friendly enough to get posted on YouTube.

So why is CBS refusing to show it during the Superbowl?

Offsite: Two guys kissing set to steal the Super Bowl show

31st January 2010. See article from independent.co.uk by Guy Adams

Women's groups and gay activists are squaring up against opponents from the family values lobby over the contents of two very different television adverts that are due to air when the New Orleans Saints take on the Indianapolis Colts in next Sunday's finale of the American football season. One of the commercials carries a hard-hitting anti-abortion message, and was made by a conservative Christian organisation. The other couldn't be more different: it publicises a gay dating website called Mancrunch, and features two men holding hands on a sofa, and then passionately kissing.

Their existence immediately sparked predictable outrage from both ends of the political spectrum. Now this year's Super Bowl broadcaster, CBS, is being bombarded with calls to keep either or both of them from the airwaves.

...Read full article

An ad for the fashion brand Fly53, which appeared in NME magazine, showed one man holding a gun against the head of a second man, who seemed to be seated. The man holding the gun had one hand held tightly against the throat of the other man, who had closed eyes and clenched teeth. The men seemed to be in a dark room. The bottom of the ad contained a list of words in small text: CONFESSION REVIVAL RETRIBUTION TORMENT ATONEMENT DIVINITY; the word CONFESSION was highlighted. Below that, small text stated FLY53 OUTFITTERS FOR THE RESISTANCE CONCEIVED DESIGNED AND BORN INTO THE WORLD TO PROTECT AND SERVE THE 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE.

A complainant thought the ad's depiction of gun crime was offensive, irresponsible and unsuitable for display in a music magazine, because it glamorised violence.

Fly53 said the ad campaign was based on the fictitious House of Fly53, which consumers could explore on their website. Each room in the house had a theme - Confession, Revival, Retribution, Torment, Atonement and Divinity - and was intended to show people in a state of heightened senses, with blurred boundaries between the real and surreal. The ad was based on the Confession room. Fly53 explained that to be fully accepted into the house, visitors must first confess their fashion crimes. They could then move through the house to the final room where they reached Atonement in the world of Fly53. The house was supposed to have a fantastical and cinematic feel and was not intended to be realistic.

Fly53 believed displaying the image out of the context of the House of Fly53 might have taken away the essence and story of the house, leading to the misinterpretation that the ad glamorised violence. They apologised for any offence caused and stated that, as a result of the complaint, they had withdrawn the image from advertising in print media.

ASA Assessment: Upheld

The ASA considered the way in which one man was holding a gun to the head of another, with his hand held tightly against the other man's throat, was aggressive and threatening. The seated man, who had closed eyes and clenched teeth, seemed to be frightened and suffering, and the darkness of the room in which the two men were depicted contributed to the menacing atmosphere. We disagreed that the violence depicted would be seen as cartoon-like and considered that it seemed realistic. Although the image resembled a scene from a film, we noted the ad was for a clothing brand and not, for example, a film with violent scenes, which made it more likely that its portrayal of violence would be seen as gratuitous. We considered the small text FLY53 OUTFITTERS FOR THE RESISTANCE CONCEIVED DESIGNED AND BORN INTO THE WORLD TO PROTECT AND SERVE THE 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE was incongruous when juxtaposed with an image of violence, and could be seen as glamorising it. We were of the view that any attempts to link the ad's image more closely with the House of Fly53 would not necessarily have made it any less problematic.

We considered that the ad's depiction of gun crime was likely to be seen as glamorising and condoning real violence. We concluded that the ad was likely to cause serious or widespread offence, and was irresponsible and unsuitable for display in a music magazine.

It's the biggest day of the year for US advertising with companies spending between $2.5m and $2.8m to ensure their product is seen by the widest possible audience, but this year's Super Bowl Sunday threatens to be overshadowed by controversy over one of the 30-second slots.

The advert in question? A commercial on behalf of the evangelical Christian organisation Focus on the Family, featuring the University of Florida's star quarterback Tim Tebow and his mother Pam, which is expected to focus on her decision to ignore medical advice to have an abortion.

The almost $3m advert, which Focus on the Family says was paid for by donations, contravenes a network policy regarding the type of ads shown during the Super Bowl. Several online petitions have called on CBS to pull the ad and 2,288 people joined a Facebook group pointing out the hypocrisy by saying: Tell CBS Reject The Focus On The Family Ad Or Accept The UCC's! UCC refers to the United Church of Christ.

...Read full article

An advertisement featuring three partially naked women was deemed inappropriate for publication by two newspapers in southern Sweden, shocking officials at the sexual health organization who created the ad.

We are really surprised because we don't think it's controversial, Mikael Andersson of the Skone-based affiliate of the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights, told the advertising trade magazine Resumé.

Andersson's comments came after learning that two prominent newspapers in southern Sweden, Sydsvenskan and City, refused to run the advertisement, one of four in a campaign entitled 'Love has many faces'.

The campaign, which includes both print and television ads, was part of an effort by local branch RFSL to strengthen the identity of homosexual, bisexual, and transgender people living in the region.

According to Sydsvenskan editor-in-chief Daniel Sandstrom, the fourth ad in the series, which featured three partially clothed women wrapped in a seemingly passionate embrace, was unacceptable.

I have no problem with printing provocative images...BUT...the picture in question simply didn't meet standards of acceptability. I think rather that it reproduces a cliché-filled image of lesbian love.

A radio ad, for a recruitment website, featured a man speaking to his boss who responded angrily and loudly in German. The voice-over said Boss a bit of a tyrant? Find your perfect boss on the UK's biggest job site ....

Thirteen listeners believed the ad was offensive to Germans, because it used an outdated stereotype and implied all Germans were tyrants.

The Radio Advertising Clearance Centre (RACC) believed most listeners would regard the scenario as humorous and inoffensive and were likely to understand that the ranting boss was a tyrant, because he responded angrily to his colleague rather than in a calm way. The RACC said the character was a generic German-sounding orator, which they believed was a well established type in comedy culture, but they did not believe the mock angry conversation, when heard alongside the phrase Boss a bit of a tyrant?, implied that all Germans were tyrants. The RACC said they did not regard the German people as a minority group, as defined by the CAP (Broadcast) Radio Advertising Standards Code, or that the scenario would be seen as a stereotype likely to cause general or serious offence to German people.

ASA Assessment: Upheld

The ASA acknowledged that the use of stereotypes was an inevitable part of establishing a character in a short radio ad, but nonetheless considered that such stereotypes should not perpetuate damaging misconceptions. We noted the ad used a German speaker, rather than someone speaking English, to portray the boss as a bit of a tyrant and the humour derived from a stereotype at the expense of German people. We considered that the portrayal suggested that German people were more likely to be unreasonable or aggressive to others.

We concluded that, given the extreme reaction and aggressive tone of the German speaking boss, the ad reinforced a negative and outdated cultural stereotype of German people as overpowering and tyrannical and therefore the ad had the potential to cause serious offence to some listeners.

The ad must not be broadcast again in its current form.

Polish nightclub has come under criminal investigation after it used an image of Adolf Hitler to promote an event.

The Klub Muzyczny Sklot, located in Warsaw's bohemian Praga district, had hoped that the picture of a typically animated Hitler sporting a pair of banana-yellow glasses would attract customers to the event but so far it has only caught the eye of the prosecutor's office.

Polish law outlaws the use of images and symbols associated with totalitarian regimes if they are deemed to be promoting a political system.

Investigators are considering whether the disco's management intended to glorify Hitler or made an innocent mistake.

Conceding that the club had made a mess, one of the organisers of the event, a man known only as Ruff T., issued a hasty apology, and said that they had meant no offence.

Air New Zealand has drawn strong criticism with its online campaign that depicts single middle-aged women as cougars on the look out for sex with young men.

The country's national carrier came up with the documentary styled clip, showing women in their 30s, 40s and 50s hunting men in their 20s, many of whom pretend to be gay to avoid their claws.

The promotion was put up to encourage women aged 35 and above to invite their pictures with their cougar mates and enter the draw for a deal including a flight and ticket to a sporting event, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.

The ad has left women's rights groups and rape prevention organisations fuming and has been dubbed as derogatory for women and also for men who have been rape victims.

Kim McGregor, director, New Zealand's Rape Prevention Education said: We have also had complaints from male survivors who have been raped by women and they are very distressed that their situation is being laughed at and made out to be humorous.

An airline spokeswoman justified the ad saying it was supposed to be light-hearted but some older women had taken a bit of offence to it.

An anti-bullying advert that was ruled 'too shocking' to appear on television has been launched online.

The film, which includes scenes where a teenage girl sews her own mouth shut, will be also be shown in cinemas before films rated 12A and above.

It is part of a £1.2 million campaign launched by children's charity Beatbullying.

The advert promotes a website, cybermentors.org.uk, which allows young people who have been bullied to help each other and discuss their problems.

A spokeswoman for Clearcast, which decides which adverts can be shown on British television, said it was felt some scenes would be viewed as offensive.

Beatbullying's chief executive, Emma-Jane Cross, said: We are proud of this advert and the way it makes you stop and understand the impact bullying can have on its victims.

But we were disappointed that Clearcast refused to let this advert go on to TV. We know that 69% of young people have been bullied and it is imperative that people know cybermentors.org.uk is there to give them support.

As reported at Burnham-On-Sea.com,

The family of well-known local livestock owner Arthur Duckett introduced the poster over the Christmas period to wish him a happy 80th birthday.

It shows Duckett and his huge steer, Field Marshall, with the caption a little man with big bulls.

Duckett received a letter from Council enforcement officer David Crowle, stating: It is the council's view that the adverts are detrimental to the amenity of the area and as such will seek their removal. It asked whether Duckett woud be prepared to take down the hoardings without the need for formal action and warned that failure to abide by regulations could lead to a £400 fine or two years' imprisonment.

Quite apart from the appalling treatment of a well-liked 80 year-old man, in forcing him to remove the poster the council is pandering to the most wretched, humourless people who are apparently incapable of appreciating a mild joke with only the slightest hint of anything that could be deemed offensive.

The Australian arm of the fast food chain Kentucky Fried Chicken has had to withdraw an advertisement after accusations of supposed racial insensitivity.

It showed a white cricket fan trying to pacify a group of rowdy West Indian fans by handing around fried chicken.

When the advertisement reached America via the internet there were complaints. It was accused of reinforcing a derogatory racial stereotype linking black people in the American deep south with a love of fried food.

The advertisement from Kentucky Fried Chicken features a white cricket fan dressed in the green and gold of the Australian team surrounded by a group of West Indian supporters, who are dancing and singing to a calypso beat. He decides to quieten them down by handing around a bucket of fried chicken.

The fast food chain's head office in America said it was withdrawing the advertisement, and apologised for what it called any misrepresentation which might have caused offense.

The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) has won a preliminary injunction in its lawsuit against the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) over the banning of advertisements for adult-rated videogames.

An ordinance that took effect in January of 2009 prohibited any advertisement that markets or identifies a video or computer game rated 'Mature 17+' (M) or 'Adults Only 18+' (AO). The ESA argued that such a ban unconstitutionally restricts speech in a public forum that is otherwise open to all speakers without a compelling interest for doing so.

The United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois granted the ESA an injunction, with Judge Rebecca R. Pallmeyer stating: …the advertisements the CTA wishes to ban promote expression that has constitutional value and implicates core First Amendment concerns.

An advertising campaign that featured the message Career women make bad mothers has been pulled from about 4,000 billboards around the country after a vehement response by irate mothers.

The Outdoor Advertising Association (OAA) hoped that its £1.25 million campaign, which also included a slogan designed to provoke England football fans that read 1966 — It won't happen this year, would show the power of billboards to inspire debate at a dedicated website, but they underestimated the potency of maternal wrath.

Mothers did indeed go online in droves, but not to Britainthinks, the internet forum set up by the advertisers. Instead, they flocked to Mumsnet. In a message thread that ran to almost 1,000 posts, they published details of the creative agency responsible for the advert, its other clients and anyone who could be used to exert pressure to have the posters withdrawn.

Four days later, shell-shocked by the torrent of abuse directed at them, the OAA apologised and promised to remove or cover up the posters as soon as possible.

Beta, the agency that created the advert, also caved in to pressure. Garry Lace, Beta's co-founder, had demanded that Mumsnet compensate him and his company for damage to their reputations, but capitulated with an apology. He denied that he was about to commence legal proceedings against Mumsnet despite admitting that he sent an e-mail to Justine Roberts, the website's managing director, in which he threatened to engage in a process to ensure ... that we are compensated for the hurt, corporate loss and reputational damage that we have suffered.

Lace said that he had relaxed his position since Mumsnet removed some of the more personal messages, but said: If my people continue to be called fucking tossers then I will take a point of view about it.