LibDems and alcohol
A Liberal Democrat wants to ban pubs from selling large glasses of wine. This practice apparently confuses restaurant-goers. The argument is nonsensical, and a LibDem should know better than to try to ban things.

Ryanair and the ASA
Ryanair have been criticised by the Advertising Standards Authority. Ryanair has had a number of run-ins with the ASA in the past; sometimes the ASA has been right, and sometimes Ryanair had a fair point to make.

The advert in question was about school term-time price-cuts, and featured the slogan “hottest back-to-school fares”. Fair enough. The advert (printed in many national papers) also featured a photo of a young model in a skimpy school-girl outfit, posing in a classroom. 13 people complained.

The ASA have banned Ryanair from republishing the poster: a move which has failed for two reasons. Firstly, Ryanair have slammed the report and made it clear that they have no intention of honouring the judgement. Secondly, the move has led to the poster being shown in every media outlet available.

The ASA is stuck between a rock and a hard place. If they do not criticise the advert’s publication, they are allowing the sexualisation of girls to become commonplace in society, prompting angry letters from people with nothing better to do than complain about seeing a model in a short skirt in a tacky airline advert. If they decide to criticise the advert, the poster gets media coverage, is seen by far more people and is published without a penny’s expense from Ryanair. What should they do?

Personally, I think the sexualisation of young girls is distasteful, and if I were an advertiser I would rise above such gaudy attention-seeking. But if Ryanair wishes to cheapen its brand, they should be allowed to do so without censorship from the remarkably reactionary and prudish ASA.

This affair is nothing to my favourite advert ban, courtesy of French Connection. Having built a brand name on dyslexia, FCUK were renowned for provocative logos. One advert was more than a little provocative, and ended with the slogan “FCUKinky Bugger”. The ASA censored the ad. The following day, FCUK ran full-page adverts in many newspapers which reproduced the censored promotion but was prefixed with “we apologise for out advert which said…”.

Ryanair’s use of a schoolgirl image is cheap and unimaginative compared to FCUK’s scrapes with the ASA. Their press releases have been comical, however. One outrageously suggests that the model was “fully clothed”:

The ASA becomes more Monty Pythonesque by the day. This latest ruling shows how absurd and out of touch this quango really is. It is remarkable that a picture of a fully clothed model is now claimed to cause “serious or widespread offence”, when many of the UK’s leading daily newspaper regularly run pictures of topless or partially dressed females without causing any serious or widespread offence.

This isn’t advertising regulation, it is simply censorship. This bunch of unelected, self appointed dimwits are clearly incapable of fairly and impartially ruling on advertising.

At a time when TV and media advertising is full of suggestive and provocative images, Ryanair believes that there is nothing either irresponsible or offensive in the attached advert. Consequently we will not be withdrawing this ad and we will not provide the ASA (Absurd Silly Asses) with any of the undertakings they seek.”