Filly cump
The KFC Zinger Crunch TV advert (see below), officially the most complained-about advert in UK history with 1671 complaints, has been exonerated by the ASA (1 June .pdf doc). The commercial featured three call centre ladies singing the praises of the salad with their mouths full. All the complainants apparently thought this encouraged children to copy them. 108 also thought it showed call centres in a bad light, and 28 thought it mocked people with speech impediments or hearing difficulties.
The impeccably mannered John Beyer thinks the regulator should have been “more accommodating”:
Advertising on television is about promoting lifestyles and good manners are part of showing respect to one another. If the viewing public continues to be ignored and overruled confidence in the system of regulation that has been put in place by the industry will be undermined. Much more notice ought to be taken of public concerns.
For the record, my three year old thought the advert was hilarious, as it showed ‘Mummies can be just as silly as schoolies’.
Whoever made the advert did me a double favour, as firstly it showed my child how ugly and uncool people look when they eat with their mouths full (so she no longer does) and secondly it probably put her off junk food for life for much the same reasons!
1671 complaints for a poor but inoffensive KFC commercial and only 800 for the Crazy Frog, which is a gigantic con. There is no justice.
My major objection to the ad was that it was promoting KFC.
Funnily enough, I found something that both reveals the difference between Beyer’s work and genuine Christian concern and attacks the antics of corporations like KFC or McDonalds.
It’s from an e-mag put out by a US Mennonite church civil rights group – sounds slightly unbelievable, but take a look at it on
http://www.geezmagazine.org/articles/wb-burgerking.html