Brickworks Building Products has removed its TV ad after the Ad Standards Panel found it in breach of violence codes.
The pay TV advertisement features a woman testing bricks in her garage/test lab at home and talking to the camera about the benefits of bricks.
A giant thug dressed in black with a very wolf-like beard appears in her garage/test lab. A super appears indicating who this is: Agent 003 AKA “the Big Bad Wolf”.
The Big Bad Wolf launches towards the brick the woman is testing. She grabs onto the Big Bad Wolf and continues to speak her message to the camera as they physically tussle.
She throws him toward a lightweight board and the lightweight board folds under pressure. The Big Bad Wolf dusts himself off and charges at the woman, she dodges him, sending him flying into the brick wall where he is knocked out.
Her robot arm zooms over to inspect the Big Bad Wolf. As she exits, he stirs - the robot arm drops a brick on his head, knocking him out again.
The complaint stated: "the wolf character is a misandrous disgrace... this is violence against men. Why isn’t the wolf character female?"
In response, Brickworks refuted the complaint and said: “The intention of the current TV commercial is designed to promote the most important benefits of bricks - safety and security.
“We don’t consider the actions in the advertisement to be excessive, and it’s intended that the storyline and the actions are exaggerated to make it more light hearted in nature.
“Brickworks is proud to be able to promote a female 'James Bond' character. In supporting diversity, we feel it is sexually discriminatory to suggest that a ‘James Bond’ character cannot be played by a woman as our primary customers are females 25-60 choosing building materials for their home, and our main goal is to empower them.”
The Panel noted that some viewers may interpret the advertisement as depicting or encouraging violence towards men.
They determined that the man in the advertisement is not shown to receive unfair or less favourable treatment because of his gender, and the advertisement did not humiliate, intimidate or incite hatred, contempt or ridicule of the man because of his gender.
Therefore, the Panel considered that the advertisement did not portray or depict material in a way which discriminates against or vilifies a person or section of the community on account of gender and determined that the advertisement did not breach Section 2 of the AANA Code of Ethics (the Code).
However, The Panel noted that the main character is seen to choke a man, throw him through a temporary wall, and throw him against a brick wall.
They considered that most people would consider these combat scenes, even if obviously staged, to be violent with realistic sounds of blows landing, people grunting and a brick to the head resulting in unconsciousness.
The Panel determined that the advertisement did present or portray violence, which was not justifiable in the context of the product or service advertised and did breach Section 2.3 of the Code.
The advertisement has been discontinued.
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