Three Australian ads, from three different countries of origin, in three different sectors, executing three different Ad Standards rulings in less than three weeks. A motorcyclist in his underwear briefly touching a mounted phone. A husband slipping a tracker into his wife’s wallet without telling her. A man at a Sunday barbecue being repeatedly slapped on the head with thongs by his mates. The product propositions were online privacy, location tracking and cloud accounting. The visual metaphors were unsafe motorcycle phone use, non-consensual surveillance and casual physical assault.
Each brand argued, when challenged, that the work was stylised, light-hearted or fantastical. Each was rejected by the same regulator. The question hanging over the past fortnight is whether three identical defences in a row represent three unlucky judgements or one structural flaw in how Australian brands are commissioning creative.
The Hnry ad was banned at the beginning of the month. The Kiwi-founded accounting service for sole traders produces most of its creative in-house. The same team made last year’s “Soul Trader” campaign, in which a Grim Reaper reminded self-employed Australians that death and taxes are both inevitable but at least one of them can be made painless. That work was provocative, smart and defensible. The Grim Reaper had a job. Every transgressive choice in the spot pointed at the product. The barbecue ad does the opposite. The violence is the spectacle and the cloud accounting is the alibi. Ad Standards ruled the assault sequence portrayed violence “not justifiable in the context of the product or service being advertised.” Hnry argued the spot was light-hearted.
A week earlier, the same panel …
