Sun poster banned for use of swearword

by Staff, Campaign 26-Nov-08, 09:30

LONDON - A lorry billboard for the Sun newspaper, which cheekily mocked the Australians' 2008 Olympic medal haul, has been banned.

The ad, which was driven around London, stated: Where the bloody hell were you? and compared Britain’s medal haul of 19 to Australia’s 14.

The Advertising Standards Authority received a complaint that the ad was offensive in a public place where it could be seen by children.

Its ruling said: We… considered that the word "bloody" was a swear word, albeit a milder one than some others and concluded that it was socially irresponsible to reproduce it in advertising in an untargeted medium to which children could be exposed.

The Sun had argued that the word "bloody" was a generally acceptable mild epithet, and not offensive.

However, the ASA ordered that the ad was not shown again.

Comments

Richard Hayter - 26/11/2008

How many complaints did this one get? It looks like Britain is turning into a nation of small minded, humourless c***s.

Ben Kay - 26/11/2008

small minded, humourless f***ing, s****ing, p***wipe, c***ing b*****ds, you mean.

Noel Bussey - 26/11/2008

I'd like to complain about the offensive use of asterisks on this site - a site that children could easily get to with just an e-mail address and login. If just one child works out that the five asterisks in B*****ds spells "astar" then the world will go right down the s*****r.