ASA blasts Sony for ‘offensive’ mortuary ad

Sony Computer Entertainment UK must submit its posters for pre-vetting after falling foul of the Advertising Standards Authority with an ad featuring a dismembered body on a mortuary slab.

But seven complaints about a press appeal for donations from Help The Aged, showing the feet of six people all bearing death tags to illustrate the potential fatal effects of cold, were not upheld.

The authority upheld ten complaints about the Sony PlayStation poster created by TBWA GGT Simons Palmer for the game Tekken 3, ruling that it was likely to cause serious or widespread offence.

Under ASA rules introduced on June 1 last year, advertisers which run shocking or offensive poster campaigns must submit to pre-vetting of subsequent ads for the following two years.

Sony Computer Entertainment also came under fire for a direct mail- shot by Claydon Heeley International in the form of a brown envelope marked “Private & Confid- ential” and “Test results”, which prompted 78 complaints.

The ASA upheld 17 complaints about a Diesel cinema ad set in the trenches of World War I, which was pulled after being screened around Remembrance Day. It ruled that the ad was likely to cause offence.