A flurry of complaints against TBWA’s latest Nissan Micra commercial has
been rejected by the Independent Television Commission.
Sixteen viewers protested about the ad, which features a Hollywood
stuntman driving home from work in his wife’s Nissan. He is later seen
being thrown from an upstairs window into a swimming pool. The endline
warns: ‘The Micra Hollywood. Ask before you borrow it.’
The complainants saw the ad as condoning violence to men by women,
arguing that the scene would not have been shown if the roles had been
reversed. However, the ITC dismissed these views about the
‘lighthearted’ ad as ‘unlikely to be widely shared’ in its monthly
Television Advertising Complaints Report for September.
The ITC also rejected 30 complaints about Roose and Partners’ ad for
Rowntree’s Toffee Crisp, in which the product is transformed into a
variety of cartoon-style objects, including a pistol and a noose. The
noose appears briefly around the neck of the young man featured with his
girlfriend in the ad.
The ITC programme code does not allow hanging scenes that are ‘capable
of easy imitation’ before the 9pm watershed. However, it ruled that ‘the
comic cartoon nature of this advertisement clearly removed it from any
real life context’.
Only one complaint was upheld in the latest bulletin - against a Post
Office ad by GGT which the ITC felt implied that foreign currency could
be exchanged at all Post Offices. In fact, only 600 of the 18,000
branches offer currency exchange on demand.
