Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - S8E24 - God Save The Commercial: When Ads Are Banned

Episode Date: June 13, 2019

This week, we look at banned commercials. The majority of the time, ads are banned for being sexist or too suggestive. But many commercials are banned for other, more fascinating reasons. Sometimes bans cripple a campaign, other times they’re puzzling, but more often than not, they’re rocket fuel. Hope you’ll join us.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly. As you may know, we've been producing a lot of bonus episodes while under the influences on hiatus. They're called the Beatleology Interviews, where I talk to people who knew the Beatles, work with them, love them, and the authors who write about them. Well, the Beatleology Interviews have become a hit, so we are spinning it out to be a standalone podcast series. You've already heard conversations with people like actors Mark Hamill, Malcolm McDowell, and Beatles confidant Astrid Kershaw. But coming up, I talk to May Pang, who dated John Lennon in the mid-70s. I talk to double fantasy guitarist Earl Slick, Apple Records creative director John Kosh. I'll be talking to Jan Hayworth,

who designed the Sgt. Pepper album cover. Very cool. And I'll talk to singer Dion, who is one of only five people still alive who were on the Sgt. Pepper cover. And two of those people were Beatles. The stories they tell are amazing. So thank you for making this series such a success. And please do me a favor, follow the Beatleology interviews on your podcast app. You don't even have to be a huge Beatles fan. You just have to love storytelling. Subscribe now and don't miss a single beat. new year new me season is here and honestly we're already over it enter felix the health care company helping canadians take a different approach to weight loss this year weight loss is more than just diet and exercise it can be about tackling genetics hormones metabolism felix

gets it they connect you with licensed healthcare practitioners online who'll create a personalized treatment plan that pairs your healthy lifestyle with a little help and a little extra support. Start your visit today at felix.ca. That's F-E-L-I-X.ca. Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not. Just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are.

So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. From the Under the Influence digital box set, this episode is from Season 8, 2019. You're so king in it You're not you when you're hungry You're a good influence with Terry O'Reilly. In late October of 1977, a band released a song that was destined to create controversy. The band was the Sex Pistols.

The song was God Save the Queen. The song was named after the national anthem, but it clearly wasn't the national anthem. As a matter of fact, it referred to the monarchy as a fascist regime and, in a time of high youth unemployment in Britain, lead singer Johnny Rotten sang of a country with no future. The song was banned by the BBC, and many major record retailers banned the record from their stores. The song was also banned by the Independent Broadcasting Authority, which regulated independent local radio stations. In spite of the bans, the song climbed to number two on the official UK music chart.

Many believed it actually outsold the number one record I Don't Want To Talk About It by Rod Stewart, but was kept out of the number one spot by backroom manipulation in deference to the Queen. As a matter of fact, the song was even banned

from the record chart. Rod Stewart's song was listed as number one, but the number two space was actually left blank. God Save the Queen was deemed so offensive the chart even banned the name.

The Sex Pistols then released their only official studio album titled Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols. While the band maintained the phrase Never Mind the Bollocks meant stop talking rubbish, the word bollocks was considered obscene in the UK as it was also a derogatory word for testicles.

As a result, the album spawned an obscenity court case. The few record stores that dared display it were also charged with obscenity if the word bollocks was not covered up. But in the end, all charges were, reluctantly, dropped. The Sex Pistols were banned from performing in many locations in England, and when the group wanted to tour the U.S., they were initially banned from entering the country because three of the members had criminal records. Never Mind the Bollocks would go on to be considered one of the most important albums of all time.

In 1987, Rolling Stone magazine listed it as the second best album of the last 20 years, behind only the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Many critics feel the Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bollocks changed everything. There was certainly nothing like it before and really nothing like it after. The album influenced countless bands, including Nirvana,

who named their second album Nevermind, said to be an homage to the Pistols. The Sex Pistols were pure punk angst. They railed against the establishment with genuine rage. When the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006, they sent a letter to the hall that was read to the crowd on the night of the induction. Well, as I'm sure many of you have heard, the Sex Pistols declined to join us tonight. But they did send us this letter and I thought I'd read it to you. The Sex Pistols clearly hadn't mellowed.

If you voted for us, hope you noted your reasons. You're anonymous as judges, but you're still music industry people. We are not coming. You're not paying attention. That said it all. Being inducted was an insult to the Sex Pistols. They were against the establishment. As they said, the hall wasn't paying attention.

For a band that was banned at every turn, the Sex Pistols achieved lasting notoriety. Being banned was rocket fuel. Often in the world of advertising, commercials get banned. Sometimes it cripples the campaign, sometimes the bans are puzzling, and sometimes the bans are rocket fuel. Most often than not, commercials are banned for being sexist or too suggestive. But many commercials are banned for other, more fascinating reasons. Even though they are much tamer than the programs they interrupt, commercials as a category are judged by a very different standard.

Never mind the same. They show shiny cars zipping around wet city streets or speeding across rough terrain leaving behind nothing but dust. Inevitably, those commercials feature disclaimers like Closed Course Professional Driver. But what if I told you one UK car commercial was banned for encouraging unsafe driving, while the car in question never exceeded 24 kilometers per hour? The ad was for the Ford Mustang.

It's sleek, shiny, and probably fast. But to promote the new Stang, Ford decided to go another route. The ad featured a series of dreary gray scenes depicting the drudgery of 9-to-5 work life, starting with the crowded train commute, then filing into a cramped elevator, then frustration when coffee spills on important papers

or the fax machine breaks down. The scenes are set to a voice reading the famous poem written by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas called Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night. Do not go gentle into that good night. Old age should burn and rave at close of day. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right. Because their words had full no lightning. They do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage. Rage. Against the dying of the light. Then the screen goes dark and the words, Don't go quietly, appear. And as a sharp contrast to the grey ad, we see a bright orange Ford Mustang leaving an underground parking lot. During the scenes with the Mustang, the car never exceeds 15 miles per hour or 24 kilometers per hour. The 2018 ad was shown in movie theaters as well as online

and immediately began receiving complaints. It appeared to many that although the sports car wasn't driving unsafely, the poem encouraged unsafe driving. The complaints argued the word rage, spoken repeatedly against the backdrop of frustrated people, might encourage road rage. The British Advertising

Standards Authority agreed and banned the commercial, stating the ad encouraged motorists to, quote, drive in an aggressive manner as a way of relieving anger. It's an interesting case because the ad bucked typical car commercial convention. Instead of showing a speeding vehicle, it showed a car meandering in second gear. And it was still banned.

It may be one of the only instances where imagery leading up to a driving scene was deemed to encourage dangerous driving when the actual driving scene did not. In 2018, Volkswagen Australia created an ad that intentionally mocked the reasons car commercials are typically banned. It began with the words, We created the most powerful utility vehicle ad ever. Legally, this is all we can show you. In the commercial, we see the truck performing exciting stunts. But whenever it comes to a questionable scene, the commercial would cut to a toy truck instead. It was a naughty idea. It showed what

VW wanted to do, then showed what it was allowed to do, all in the same commercial. The advertising board didn't see the humor in it and banned the ad. It was an ironic moment. In an industry that fundamentally works by holding a mirror up to life, it learned that holding a mirror up to ad regulations doesn't work. Here in Canada, we have our own list of banned commercials. Take an ad for Science World in Vancouver. It was produced by one of the most creative advertising agencies in the country called Rethink. Rethink has a history of doing highly creative work for Science World,

and some of it has been occasionally banned. The idea behind this television commercial was simple. As with most science world ads, it highlights a curious aspect of human nature you can discover at the Science Center. The insight here was that optimists feel less pain. So if you are a glass-half-full person, your pain threshold is higher than a glass-half-empty person. The commercial begins with a smiling man opening his front door and greeting the morning. Good morning, world.

He is immediately hit in the head with a rolled-up newspaper courtesy of the paper boy. Good morning, newspaper. Then he walks down his front stairs and steps on a nail. Morning, nail. Then a neighborhood dog bites his ankle. Morning, sprinkles. Then a neighborhood kid runs up and kicks him in the crotch. Good morning, Timmy.

Then a flaming arrow strikes him in the back. Good morning, Renaissance Fair. As he waves and crosses the street, a school bus runs him over. Words appear on the screen that say, optimists feel less pain. Morning, bus. Science world, now you know.

Truth be told, the commercial is hilarious. The man smiles through it all and never seems to suffer from the pain at all. But the commercial was banned by the Television Bureau of Canada on the following grounds. It objected to the fact the man was kicked in the groin, that the man was shot with an arrow, that the arrow was on fire, that the man was hit by a bus, and lastly, the fact the dog bit the man on the ankle was also unacceptable.

Again, I have to say that each of those moments was handled with humor by an ad agency that knew what it was doing. You can see much more violence, way more, on television any night of the week. Game of Thrones, for example, has killed 174,000 people over the course of the series. The Walking Dead featured over 2,000 dead. NCIS has dealt with close to 1,000 dead bodies and counting. But advertising is not allowed to go there. Not even when handled with a high degree of humor. You can see the commercial for yourself online.

Search Positively Painful Science World Ad and judge for yourself. It positively reminds me of an IKEA campaign that was banned in Europe. In September 2001, IKEA France launched a brand new advertising campaign. It was called Tidy Up. The campaign was a series of five ads with the theme Tidy Up. If you don't do it for yourself, do it for others. And it showed some unfortunate ramifications of not tidying up your home.

For example, one ad features a nervous 20-something man setting the mood before his date arrives. He puts on a CD, checks his hair in the mirror, and invites her in. She sits down on the couch and the two lean back to start kissing when she appears to pass out. The man lifts her up only to realize she's leaned right into a fork. She falls onto the ground with the silverware sticking straight out of her back. And the words, tidy up, appear across the screen. In another ad, we see a woman frantically searching her messy house for something.

She's looking under the bed, in her closet, under her duvet, behind the couch. She makes her way into the laundry room and lifts up some sheets in an overflowing laundry basket on the floor only to find her baby. She hugs it in relief. The words tidy up appear on the screen. And another ad showed a young couple sharing a plate of spaghetti. And, like the famous scene in Lady and the Tramp, the woman is slowly slurping a long noodle that turns out to be a long lace from a dirty running shoe.

Yuck. Time to tidy up. The tongue-in-cheek ads were targeting young adults, but the ads were banned in parts of Europe, likely due to the many controversial themes present across the campaign. Again, it's interesting to note the dichotomy between advertising and the mediums it interrupts.

Things like sex and death are commonplace in TV shows, but when they make their way into our commercial breaks, it's a problem. As Xbox discovered when one of its ads was killed. To see behind the scenes of Under the Influence, follow us on Twitter and Instagram at Terry O'Influence. For a master episode list, go to terryoreilly.ca.

And we'll be right back after this message. Back in 2002, Microsoft was launching Xbox in Europe. Xbox hired one of the best UK advertising agencies called Bartle Bogle Hagerty. The video the ad agency came up with was very unusual. It all begins in a delivery room where a woman is in heavy labor. She pushes and pushes, then gives one final push. Suddenly, the baby shoots out across the room. The umbilical cord severs and the infant flies out the hospital window like it was shot from a cannon.

In a plume of vapor, the baby flies over the city and countryside. As it soars like a missile across the sky, it begins to age. The baby morphs into a toddler, then a young pre-teen kid, then a teenager. Then a 20-year-old. Then a middle-aged man. Then the screaming middle-aged man turns into an elderly man finally crashes right into a grave. Words appear on the screen.

Life is short. Play more. Xbox. Xbox wanted the video to go viral, and it did. That was very impressive, considering YouTube hadn't been invented yet. It could only be shared via email at that time, and still got shared over a million times. With that viral success, Xbox gave the green light to turn the video into a television commercial. It hit the air in Britain in March of 2002 and immediately generated over 135 complaints. The UK's Independent Television Commission then banned it from TV. Here's the interesting part. It wasn't the crazy birth scene with the baby shooting across the room,

the umbilical cord breaking, and the naked infant crashing through the window that people found objectionable. It was the death scene. It's that boundary advertising is never allowed to cross. While advertising strives to mirror the life of its customers, it's still fascinating that it's not allowed to show one of the most inescapable aspects of life. Death.

While the commercial was killed on TV, it has enjoyed a long life online. As is the case with almost all rejected commercials, the ban fueled its notoriety, giving Xbox more publicity than it could have ever received otherwise. Slice of life advertising? otherwise. Slice of life advertising? Okay. Slice of death? Not so much. In the UK, there is a supermarket called Iceland.

In April of 2018, the chain of Iceland supermarkets banned a certain ingredient from its shelves. Then it wanted to air a TV commercial explaining the ban, but that commercial was then banned. It's an interesting story. Iceland has over 900 locations in the UK. It made news when it became the first major supermarket to ban palm oil from its own store-branded

products. Global demand for palm oil has increased six-fold since 1990. Some reports say palm oil is found in nearly half of all products on supermarket shelves, from foods to shampoos to cosmetics.

Many believe the demand results in massive deforestation in places like Indonesia, which is threatening the habitat of orangutans, which spend 95% of their lives in trees. According to reports, Indonesia's forests are disappearing at a rate of one football field every 25 seconds. So when Iceland's supermarkets wanted to broadcast a commercial telling viewers why they banned palm oil, the commercial itself was rejected by an advertising clearance body. The beautifully animated commercial showed a baby orangutan showing up in a little girl's

bedroom after escaping the destruction of its rainforest home. The commercial was voiced by actress Emma Thompson. See if you can guess why it was banned. Here it is in its entirety. There's a ragtan in my bedroom and I don't know what to do. She plays with all my teddies and keeps borrowing my shoe. She destroys all of my houseplants and she keeps on shouting, ooh. She throws away my chocolate and she howls at my shampoo. There's a ragtan in my bedroom and I don't want her to stay. So I told the naughty ragtan that she had to go away. Oh, ragtan in my bedroom, just before you go, why were you in my bedroom? I really want to know. There's a human in my forest and I don't

know what to do. He destroyed all of our trees for your food and your shampoo. There's a human in my forest and I don't know what to do. He took away my mother and I'm scared he'll take me too. There are humans in my forest and I don't know what to do. They're burning it for palm oil, so I thought I'd stay with you. Oh, Rangtan in my bedroom, now I do know what to do. I'll fight to save your home, and I'll stop you feeling blue. I'll share your story far and wide so others can fight too. Oh, Rangtan in my bedroom, I swear it on the screen that said, Dedicated to the 25 orangutans we lose every day. Until all palm oil causes zero rainforest destruction,

we're removing all palm oil from our own label products, Iceland supermarkets. Well, you can be forgiven for not picking up on the reason the commercial was rejected, because it had nothing to do with what you just heard. It was rejected because it was in breach of political advertising rules in the UK's Broadcasting Code. Specifically, the code prohibits advertising that is, quote, inserted by or on behalf of a group that is wholly or mainly of a political nature. And there was the problem.

The ad was originally created by Greenpeace and had run on its website for months. Iceland's supermarkets asked Greenpeace for permission to use the commercial. When Iceland received that approval, it took all the Greenpeace messaging out of the ad and rebranded the ad as Iceland Supermarkets. The commercial was to be their Christmas campaign.

But it was rejected. Here's the thing. The content of the ad was never in question. The UK advertising clearance body had no problem with what the ad was saying. The problem was the ad's original link to Greenpeace, and Greenpeace is considered a political organization. Even though Iceland had removed all Greenpeace branding in the ad both visually and verbally and had completely repurposed it, the ad was still rejected. When news of the ban broke, several interesting things happened. First, a Change.org petition to show the ad on television

was signed by over 700,000 people within days. Carolyn McCall, the CEO of ITV, Britain's largest commercial broadcaster, publicly stated the ad should have been allowed to run on television. McCall also questioned the effectiveness of the decision as the ad was prohibited on TV, yet was viewed over 65 million times online. In a Millward-Brown survey, the commercial was named the Most Powerful Christmas Ad of 2018.

The British public considered it the strongest seasonal campaign and praised it for showing involvement, enjoyment, persuasion, and differentiation. Proving that sometimes the message isn't the problem, often it's the messenger that gets shot. In my entire career, I never had a commercial banned. There were times, however, where I had to change a section of the script in order to get approval. In one instance, a beer commercial I once wrote showed a person toasting slightly above shoulder level.

The regulatory body rejected the ad because it showed, quote, over-exuberance for beer. Thankfully, we had another shot where the toast was more perpendicular. The point being, often you have no idea what will get an ad rejected. In each case we talked about

today, I suspect the advertiser was unaware their commercial was going to be banned. Unlike companies like GoDaddy that would purposely create sexist Super Bowl commercials they knew would be banned so they companies like GoDaddy that would purposely create sexist Super Bowl commercials they knew would be banned so they could get Super Bowl press coverage without paying Super Bowl dollars. It's also interesting that in the 21st century, commercials are held to a different standard than the programming they interrupt. Yet, in almost every case, the ban

served as rocket fuel. The notoriety gave the commercials instant attention online. The Iceland ban gave the supermarket an 8,000% increase in viewers over all the previous Christmas ads it had ever done. Just as bans attracted huge attention for Xbox, IKEA and Science World. Maybe the ad industry needs to pay attention to the sex pistols. Because being banned isn't the worst thing that can happen when you're under the influence.

I'm Terry O'Reilly. This episode was recorded in the Terrastream Mobile Recording Studio. Producer, Debbie O'Reilly. Sound Engineer, Keith Oman. Theme music by Ari Posner and Ian Lefevre. Co-writer, Sidney O'Reilly. If you liked this episode, you might also enjoy Sue Me, Sue You Blues, Famous Advertising Lawsuits,

Season 4, Episode 20. You'll find it free in our archives wherever you download your podcasts. See you next week. Under the influence. And the difference is fantastic. Um, do you wear clothes when you listen to our show? If so, have we got a t-shirt for you.

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