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THE ADVERTISING STANDARDS Authority of Ireland (ASAI) has ruled that car brand Kia must change an advert which depicts a man jumping off a cliff while screaming.
The ad, according to the firm, was intended to show a man completing his own personal bucket list which included a cliff jump. They said this was evident by another portion of it which portrayed the man, following the jump, placing a tick beside the words Scotland – Cliff Jump.
The person who made the complaint said he found the advertising to be extremely disturbing as, before he noted what it was for, he considered that the man was attempting to take his own life.
In the ad, he is shown entering the water and swimming to the surface, then climbing up the edge of the cliff. He is then shown walking and then sitting in his car.
According to the upheld complaint to the ASAI: “The complainant, who participated actively in water sports, considered that if the advertisement was purporting to promote adventure, then it should have shown the man wearing a wetsuit and using safety gear when jumping from the cliff as this was normally the case for coasteering.
“The complainant also said that it appeared that the man was jumping alone which was irresponsible as it could potentially encourage others to swim alone or to participate in similar unsafe behaviour around cliffs and water which was actively discouraged by water safety organisations.”
The advertisers said that whilst they took on board the complainant’s opinion, they did not agree that this it was in any way encouraging dangerous behaviour or suicide.
The ASAI found that it did not consider it was best practice to portray anyone, particularly a person fully clothed, jumping from a cliff feet first into the water below.
The body also noted that the man had run at speed towards the cliffs and was not wearing any safety gear and that he appeared to have jumped alone into the water without taking note of rocks or any other dangerous items that may have been present.
It ordered that the advert be amended.
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Sure wasn’t it the same reason they banned those ads when all those people started eating 3 shredded wheat in the morning.
@Tony Gordon: ABSOLUTE NONSENSE! It’s just an add ffs, unfortunately people are still going to jump off cliffs whether this add is aired or not. NONSENSE!!
@paddyirishman: I guess the hope is that one of them might not and that they’ll seek help sooner than throw themselves to their death.
There’s something really ironic about seeing someone like yourself throw a wobbler online about an add being pulled, screaming that it’s nonsense… I mean, calm down, it’s just an add right?
Jeez what a snowflake. Someone please warn him about the add where Nicole Scherzinger walks into the door, don’t have a panic attack cos she makes a full recovery!
Amended ?????
The only way to amend this is to cut out everything before he gets out of the water …… The advertising agency behind this should have been hit with a hefty fine.
@Passing through this life: this kind of nonsense makes me want to jump off a cliff
@Passing through this life: just change the tag line “buy a Kia before you die (low km nearly new models on sale)”
@David Edwards: It might not cause you or for that matter me to do something stupid …… but this world is full of the truly stupid. Last year we had the incident of the guy who died from a fall from the cliff in Co Clare ….. and then there were the idiots during the storms …..
These people should not be encouraged or given ideas …… if only because of the financial cost to the Irish taxpayer ….
@David Edwards: Grow up, that’s not really too clever a thing to say now is it?
@Passing through this life: nice use of 5 ? You must have been really confused
@Passing through this life: Yes, because in the case of a person committing suicide all that matters is the taxpayer!
@Dotty Dunleary: Sorry if you missed my point …. my reference to “cost to the taxpayer” …. was to make a point to the idiots who think that it doesn’t effect them . I don’t begrudge this spending …. I also intended to make the point of the danger they put our rescue service personal in …. but accidently hit post.
@Passing through this life: It’s why the emergency services exist, and the personnel are trained to deal with dangerous situations. Hopefully they are never put in a position where there lives are endangered though!
@Passing through this life: is this not just called natural selection, using your analogy, think of how much money we could save trying not to swaddle the lemmings, But seriously its just an ad.
@Passing through this life: surely it would be cheaper for us not to swaddle every lemming from cradle to grave. But seriously its just an ad
7 year warranty though
Here we go again more PC bull
Snowflakes triggered again…
Fantastic
How does Superman get away with everything?
Some people just have too much time
idiotic ad
have your say