The Regulators.

The regulators.

The advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is the UK's independent regulator of advertising across all types of media whether it be television, radio etc. Therefore when a company comes up with an advert to promote their products or services, before it goes public it must go through regulation with the ASA. The ASA ensure that every UK advertisement is responsible.

If you or anyone you know finds a TV advert offensive in any way ASA is also the place to go to, to make a complaint about this specific TV advertisement. the process is quite simple, you go directly to the ASA website and on the main page theres a subtitle for consumers with a link underneath 'make a complaint.' After this you have to check whether your complaint is covered by the ASA you can do this by clicking the link provided to see what complaints they cover OR give them a call and discuss it over the phone. After you have checked you can then submit the complaint online, over the phone or even write to them. The ASA will give you the name of the person who will keep you, the costumer in contact. Your information will be confidential to the advertisement you are complaining about unless told otherwise by the consumer. The complaint will be resulted in the advert being changed depending of how minor the mistake is. However if it is more major then the process will take slightly longer as an investigation will have to under go, meaning that the ASA will contact the parties involved the advertiser and if appropriate the broadcaster. They then make a decision as the whether the advertising codes have ben breached, if so the advert will either be amended or withdrawn.




In this advertisement theres seen to be a man who is speed walking down a street, then out of nowhere comes Mr T in a army tank. Mr T says "you a disgrace to the man race" and makes other comments. Mr T then starts to fire snicker bars at him forcing the speed walker to "run like a real man.'

This advert could come across offensive because Mr T is referring to this man as not a real man because of the way he's speed walking, "real men" are meant to run. Speed walking is seen as a more feminine way of working out therefore this could be offensive to not just homosexual males but males that "act" or prefer to be more feminine because Mr T is stating that they are not "real men." However some people may feel like this advert shouldn't have been banned simply because it can also come across as innocent, non-harmful humour.


After carrying out some research, the guardian news website has stated that "Mars has pulled a UK TV ad for Snickers featuring Mr T harassing a speed walker for being a "disgrace to the man race" after US complaints that it was offensive to gay people."

The Human Rights Campaign criticised Mars for perpetuating "the notion that the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community is a group of second class citizens and that violence against GLBT people is not only acceptable, but humorous".



I think that the regulators were right to ban this advert as the LGBT citizens feel discriminated against. Personally being apart of LGBT I don't feel offended by this advert, I'm more open minded. If people find this advert funny then shall be it however if a number of people feel offended by this advert then there's no reason why it shouldn't be banned. Another reason why I think the regulators were right to ban this advert is because this advert also promotes violence towards the LGBT community, Mr T fires him with snickers forcing to "get some nuts" and be more of a man.


To conclude.....................