No sex on the bus, please: people don't like it; the watchdog doesn't like it. The ASB has upheld a complaint about a bus ad for herbal tea brand Vigor, which claimed to boost sex lives and featured a topless man and woman. Touching each other. Tea for two? Tea far too much, it appears.
The bus ad, which wrapped around the back and sides of a bus, promoted the herbal tea as "the sexy tea for 2". It showed a topless man and woman in an embrace with the strapline "Improve Your Sex Life". It also gave instructions on how users could try a free sample.
One person was outraged. They used capital letters to tell the Advertising Standards Bureau (ASB) just how "disgusting" they found the advert. "It’s wrong that my children are exposed to such disgust and we can’t even get away from it because it is stopped at a stop light or we are having to sit behind it," they said.
"Think about the discussions that we are FORCED to have due to this advertisement. Also if you go to their website, it is soft porn."
Vigor Tea, owned by a company called Global Herbal Products, argued that while it did show some level of nudity, it was in line with Section 2.4 of the code which states it is acceptable if of relevance to the product. "In this case we argued that the image is both tasteful and relevant to the audience and the product," it said.
"However we are mindful that there is no way to restrict outdoor advertising exposure to any one age demographic and whilst this product is not necessarily restricted for sale to people of any age, it is certainly aimed at the 18+ market. The image used is small in relation to the advertising space accounting for less than 25 % of the space of the back and only around 5% of the size available on the bus sides," it continued.
It also argued that Go Transit had ruled it couldn't use the word "sex" and had asked it to change the copy from "Improve Your Sex Life" to "The Sexy Drink for 2". "These changes are expected to be executed ASAP and were communicated to the complainant when she called Go Transit before lodging her complaint to ASB," it said.
The brand said it had submitted two samples of the ad with the differing taglines.
Despite this, the watchdog ruled that given the wide audience who could view the ad, it didn't treat sex, sexuality and nudity with sensitivity to its relevant audience and was therefore a breach of Section 2.4 of the Code. It also found the ad a breach of Section 2.5 of the Code which relates to strong and/or obscene language. While it ruled the "sexy tea for 2" slogan wasn't a breach of this, "improve your sex life" was. And so, upheld the complaints on both versions of the ad.
Not to be deterred, the Tea purveyors brand said all models in the ad had since been replaced with fully clothed models and it would continue to implement the alternative tagline as a result of the ruling.
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