Wednesday 11 November 2009

Most ridiculous complaint ever?

The Advertising Standards Authority received 29 complaints that the Cadbury's Fairtrade TV campaign was demeaning to African people and perpetuated racial stereotypes.

But today, the ASA threw the comlaints out, ruling that most ads use stereotyping to get their message across.

A spokesman for the ASA said: Although the council acknowledges that Cadbury had used stereotypes in their ads, they felt that the stereotypes were not harmful or offensive.

The ad was created by Fallon, in collaboration with Ghanaian creatives, to celebrate the fact that Dairy Milk now only uses Fair Trade chocolate.

At the time the ad was released, Cadbury marketing director Phil Rumbol said: Music has always been a big part of Glass and a Half Full Productions and we were inspired by Ghana’s love of music so it seemed the perfect way to capture the spirit of the country was through a track.

Had Fallon been punnished, it truely would have been the end to advertising for me. What a load of bollocks.

Fortunatley, only one side comes out looking bad here... this story says far more about the people that complained than the creative execution.

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