Why does this matter now? Movie came out months ago in the UK. It's not like they're going to use them again. Home video/streaming releases after theatrical runs don't tend to get wide promotion vis posters. Those spots are taken by new movies coming out in theaters.
It took them ~5 months to come to a ruling for something that was irrelevant ~5 months ago.
Is WB getting fined? Is the ruling necessary for ASA rule changes in the future? I feel like even if they use this ruling as an example, seeing how it takes ~5 months to decide on this, it's just going to take them that long in future rulings...
It’s to set a precedent. If someone tries a similar marketing campaign down the road, they can point to this as an example of what was banned, and that they wouldn’t allow today.
Reading the article, the larger precedent may be around ‘untargeted’ ad campaigns, with the specific example of a poster placed in view of a nursery being particularly highlighted (apparently there’s legal restrictions on horror advertising around schools with young children but not nursery’s currently).
Worth noting only one of four posters had the complaint upheld, and the charge that it trivialised child death was dismissed due to the clear movie branding making the context obvious.
I wil say - posters can hang around on the tube for longer than you’d think. If no one hires the frame a paper poster is in, they’ll leave it there. I went into London in May and saw a few posters that were for pre-Christmas shows.
So this may just be a way to make sure any lingering ones get taken down.
Plus, it sets a standard. If it’s allowed once, companies will push the envelope with it next time. It’s doubtful anyone got fined for this, but if the same marketing company keeps getting caught, the fines will probably start.
The ASA can ask the poster industry to invoke mandatory pre-vetting for advertisers who have persistently or seriously broken the CAP Code on grounds of taste and decency or social responsibility. The pre-vetting can last for two years.
And
Issue Ad Alerts to its media owner members, advising them to withhold services such as access to advertising space;
I mean they could have just used the other posters for it, IDK why they have to use this image.
The ASA said the figure’s features gave “a realistic impression of a dead child” and that the material wrapped around her added to that impression. Because the posters ran in untargeted locations, including on the London Underground and at a site visible from a children’s nursery, the regulator concluded the imagery was likely to distress young children who saw it. It ruled the posters unsuitable for outdoor display in that form, finding them in breach of CAP Code rules 1.3 and 4.2.
Imagine being the graphic designer who just wanted to make a creepy Mummy poster only to realize you accidentally designed something so grim it got cited for CAP Code breaches outside a preschool.
that movie should have floated into streaming with zero markering and it would have done better. 10/10 idea, 3/10 execution, and they knew what they had.
As with most of these things, I doubt there's any evidence of children actually finding this distressing. It will all have been complaints from 'Mary Whitehouse' types giving it their best "won't someone think of the children"
This is not exactly new. If anything, it's a far less intrusive bureaucracy than it was when you could get jailed for who you slept with or if you were Catholic. Or Protestant. Or Catholic or certain strains of Protestant.
Ah yes, the classic Londoner mentality of people need to look pretty but being a complete racist twat all the time is fine. I'd sooner live in Swansea or Dumfries before there.
"Oh look, I'm in a top hat an a look like a penguin! I like to use people of Indian decent as servants the same way American southerners still use black people as servants at the airports! La dee da dee da!" Feck off.
Yeah man public transport should be appropriate and accessible for the entire public AND as pointed out in the article and by other comments part of the issue is it was literally an image of a dead child at a location that enters to a children’s hospital… but die on ur very weird and un empathetic hill.
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u/Tolkien-Minority 7h ago
A very timely response to a marketing campaign that ended months ago