A Vodafone ad depicting cyber bullying by comparing a woman to a dog has been banned by the Advertising Standards Bureau (ASB), along with campaigns from Volvo and The Edge 96.1.
The ASB upheld complaints against the Vodafone ad for condoning cyber bullying and said there is significant community concern around appropriate online behaviour.
The Host-created television commercial featured a man talking about an exchange between himself and a friend on Facebook in which he uploaded a photo of a dog and tagged it as his friend's girlfriend. The ad had run on television for five days in August this year.
One of the complainants wrote: "Vodafone needs to be respectful of people - this isn't funny. We have just had a series of incidents in sport and elsewhere degrading people by this form of sexual innuendo and sledging. Surely it is inappropriate to use it as a means to sell a product."
The ASB board determined: "In the Board's view it is possible that younger people would see the advertisement as condoning or at least giving some legitimacy to the behaviour of posting images without consent and that this is a message that the community views as unacceptable."
Vodafone removed the advertisement and has pledged to not use it in any further campaigns.
A Volvo commercial, filmed in the US and featuring a car executing an 180 degree turn, came under fire for depicting unsafe driving.
A complainant who felt strongly about the ad wrote: "This advertisement is categorically incontrovertibly irrefutably unambiguously unequivocally indisputably indubitably undeniably unassailably and impregnably in breach. of 2(a) and (c) of the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) code."
The board determined the 180 degree turn would be considered to be driving in an unsafe or reckless manner that would breach the law anywhere in Australia. The board dismissed complaints the car in the ad appeared to be speeding.
Volvo has said it will remove the 180 degree turn at the end of the commercial in its future use.
The ASB has also banned an ad from Australian Radio Network's The Edge 96.1 station for depicting domestic violence. The radio ad for Hawkesbury Valley Holden portrays a woman slapping a man.
A complainant wrote: "That they think that violence against men is a big joke and that they keep making ads portraying this like it should be accepted by society."
The ASB board determined: "The Board noted significant community concern about domestic violence and, considered that, although most domestic violence is perpetrated by men against women, it is not appropriate to be depicting violence against men in the context of a dispute between a couple."
ARN has pulled the ad off air in response to the decision.
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