The ad watchdog appears to have had yet another sense of humour bypass after banning an ad for bookies Coral – featuring a female jockey joking with punters – which it ruled linked gambling with seduction.
The tongue-in-cheek spot, created by DLKW Lowe, depicted men in a barber’s discussing betting on a race when they were suddenly distracted by a woman, wearing a jockey’s outfit that exposed her midriff, entering the shop.
As she walked past the two men, she stopped to close one’s gaping jaw with her whip. Other men in the shop were then shown staring at the woman, including one whose hair was shaved off by a distracted barber.
The voice-over stated: “Get ready for today’s great offer”, and the woman was shown holding a sign bearing the odds for a horse in an upcoming race. In the next scene, the woman bent towards the first man, touching his mobile phone with her whip, which he used to place a bet via the Coral app.
As the woman walked out of the shop, she tapped the TV with her whip and it turned on to show a horse race. The voice-over stated, “Go on, stick one on it.” The closing shot showed a phone and tablet computer being struck with the whip.
Following a single complaint, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) launched an investigation. In its defence Coral maintained the woman did not flirt with or seduce the men and there was no suggestion that the men would be more attractive or sexually successful after betting. Far from seducing the men in the shop, the ad portrayed the female character as being completely unattainable and the men were made to look foolish in a gently humorous way.
However, the ASA was not impressed and took a somewhat blinkered approach. It considered that the manner in which the woman’s entrance was shown “placed an immediate emphasis on her sexual attractiveness, because the camera angle initially focused on her knee-high boots and then cut to showing an outfit that also featured tight jodhpurs, a whip and a jersey cut to show her midriff”.
It added: “We also considered that viewers would be likely to understand the men’s reactions to the woman’s presence as being signs of their attraction to her, rather than excitement at the odds she held up on a card at one point in the ad.
“Because she represented the Coral Interactive brand and was shown playing a seductive role in the scenario depicted, we concluded that the ad linked gambling to seduction and was therefore in breach of the code.”
The regulator banned the ad from appearing again.
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Blinkered ASA takes whip to Coral TV ad http://t.co/Ot3QZIeBhn #advertising #digitalmarketing