Most Australians believe that certain inappropriate words are never acceptable in advertising, even if censored or bleeped, a survey from Australia's advertising complaints handling body Ad Standards has found.
People described ads that use offensive language merely to shock as lazy and uninspired in the survey of over 2,000 responses representative of the Australian population.
One in four people expressed concern about violent or scary content in advertising, while one in five identified offensive language as a concern.
Ad Standards executive director Richard Bean noted that Australians can have a love-hate relationship with advertising.
"Australians appreciate creativity, memorability, and humour in advertising, but can be distrustful when ads fail to meet high standards," Bean said.
"Context, creativity, and humour can all play a role in determining the acceptability of things like violence and offensive language in advertising, but these factors can vary depending on individual perspectives and values.
"While the line for language is quite definitive, the acceptability of violence is more subjective and requires a broader frame of reference. The normalisation of violence, insensitivity to social issues, and provoking or upsetting audiences are key concerns."
Participants were more concerned about ads if they felt audiences had less control over - out-of-home advertising can feel particularly untargeted as parents were concerned about children seeing swear words or inappropriate imagery.
One 25-35 year old male respondent said: "there's a lot of different ways to be creative without having to go for the chock factor or something that's unrelated to be controversial... I believe that sometimes they know what they are doing... trying to break the rules."
But there were clear indications that people could overlook potential strong langauge or violence when the ad is clever or funny.
Tone and humour can make all the difference to how an ad is perceived - ads lacking in any negative intent makes people more likley to feel that is acceptable even when skirting close to the 'line'.
Although Australians say they are frequently exposed to advertising across a range of channels, many claim to be disengaged from advertising.
Despite this, Australians care that ads are held to high standards, with 3 in 4 Australians agreeing that advertising should reflect community standards.
Gambling and misleading or deceptive advertising is another most concerning issues for the community.
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