LONDON (Brand Republic) - Complaints from the public are soaring as advertisers resort to shock tactics in an effort to stand out in a saturated market, according to the Advertising Standards Authority鈥檚 annual report.
The watchdog received more than 3,100 complaints in the bad taste and indecency category last year, up from 929 in 1988 when the category was created. An Opium perfume ad featuring a naked Sophie Dahl provoked almost 1,000 complaints while French Connection鈥檚 promotion of its UK website, fcukinkybugger.com, elicited more than 100 complaints in two days.
Lord Borrie, the ASA chairman, blamed a saturated market. 鈥淭he key is to create an impression and a lot of them feel the need to shock. I suspect there is a bit of a trend in pushing out the boundaries of how far one can go,鈥 he said.
The ASA said that complaints about ambient advertising had risen by 1,000% in the last year -- it received 61 in 2000 compared with just six in 1999. Urban environment pressure group, The Civic Trust, is currently lobbying MPs to encourage BT to remove its payphone posters, which it believes provide cover for muggers. However, despite this opposition, the amount of annual revenue generated by ambient ads by the end of 2001 is expected to have doubled in two years.
www.fcukinkybugger.com