Britain Bans ‘Overtly Sexual’ Phone Advert

"Sure, she's basically in the nip Mary!" that's the phrase I always hope people say who work in places like the Advertising Standards Authority, which is the UK's group of people who decide what advertising gets onto the televisions of the British public. However one advert which they've banned has popped up online in the past few days. It is for a new phone by Kazam called 'Tornado 348' which claims to be the slimmest phone ever. But the reason it didn't make the cut was because it is deemed to objectify women.

The ad, which you can see for yourself below, shows a woman in just her underwear putting on a pair of jeans, doing the ironing and then putting on the shirt which she just ironed. All of sudden a phone rings and oh look, it's in the shirt pocket! Now I am guessing they banned this advert for a number of reasons, but can I just point out – surely that'd fuck with your phone a little bit? And no matter how damn slim that phone is surely at some point you'd realise the iron is running into it? But I digress.

While some see the advert as fine, albeit sex driven, rather stupid and has almost nothing to do with the phone, it didn't meet the ASA's standards and after receiving eight complaints about it, it was deemed not worthy of British TV.

"Eight complainants challenged whether the ad was offensive because it was overtly sexual and objectified women, and because the content bore no relationship to the advertised product."

Kazam has responded saying that they would have only played the advert in front of age-appropriate and tongue-in-cheek (though this advert contains mainly cheek) programming. But all that aside I can get where the complaints are coming from. The ad has nothing to do with the phone and it is rather objectifying. Sex sells. But there's a line.