Award-Winning Ad Taken Off Air In Australia

bol_kernal writes "An award-winning advertisement on Australian TV for the new Hyundai 4WD has been pulled from being broadcast after stations received 80 complaints from concerned parents. The ad consists of a small child, age around 2 years, cruising down the road, window down, arm out the window, in his new Hyundai 4WD. He sees a girl of the same age standing on the side of the road, pulls over picks her up, and they go to the beach together. All in all it's cute, funny, and very well done. The ad aired late in the evening (8:30 pm or later), but it was pulled due to concern from parents about the copycat risk. What I want to know is, where has the responsibility of parents gone? Is the world becoming so serious — or so frightened — that fantasy is no longer allowed?"

Comments

Simple answer: YES

[Teddy Beartuzzi]

Geezus, we even had folks complaining about a *robot* who had a *nightmare* about suicide.

Re:Simple answer: YES

[cdrdude]

Your link is broken, you've got an extra character in there. This should be right: http://youtube.com/watch?v=6GfdyIZcRH4

Re:Simple answer: YES

[smaddox]

The way I see it, with the amount of time it took to complain to the network about the commercial, the parents could have easily talked to their children and made sure they understood not to copy it.

For some reason, these parents think ignorance is better for their children than knowing about and understanding an issue.

Complain!

[arlo5724]

Hypothesizing about fantasy amounts to fantasizing! I move to have this story removed from /. Sign below.

From the Only in America dept.

[Simon Garlick]

In case you hadn't noticed, Australia is a de facto state of the USA now.

Yes

[Infonaut]

Is the world becoming so serious -- or so frightened -- that fantasy is no longer allowed?"

With one caveat. If it involves wealthy actors who play married hitmen trying to kill each other with everything from knives to rocket launchers, it's ok. Same thing with movies depicting armies systematically destroying each other with machine guns, bombs, flamethrowers, etc. Basically, the bigger the magnitude of the killing, destruction, and carnage, the more acceptable. The smaller the scale, the more freaked out people get.

Re:Yes

[catwh0re]

In Australia we have a law against advertising which involves displaying driving activity which is technically illegal.

The law was made because the major "australian" car manufacturer and their primary opposition (ford) were both glamourising speeding, burn outs, doughnuts etc. in car advertisements. I doubt the law was ever meant to cover situations which are technically difficult to reproduce.. afterall hyperbole is permitted in advertising (as long as it's evidently hyperbole and thus not misleading.)

Youtube link

[physicsnick]

Here's the ad on Youtube:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=g37Z8Scbj8E

So you're the ones

[Infonaut]

I always wondered where all the Bush voters came from.

Re:So you're the ones

[commodoresloat]

I always wondered where all the Bush voters came from.

Nah; folks in the Bush don't vote much.... it's the ones in the cities you've got to worry about, mate!

This is getting pathetic...

[GFree]

People getting scared, frightened about the most innocent things.

There is a saying I've heard many a time: HARDEN THE FUCK UP. Seriously, if people keep raising hell about such trivial matters, soon there won't be any imagination, any creativity, any fun in the world. People will be afraid to do ANYTHING due to lawsuits.

It will be a truly dull place to live in.

Re:I for one am glad it's gone...

[Anonymous Coward]

No. She was hitching a ride. And he was probably going to rape her.

You've got no fantasy ;)

Re:I for one am glad it's gone...

[dont_run]

Maybe. But if the ad should be pulled, then maybe children should be blindfolded to ride on cars, right? Otherwise, they will see a parent driving the car and will get "ideas"...

Kids regard their parents as models much more than something from the telly. Even bad parents.

Re:I for one am glad it's gone...

[AGMW]

What if more people now complained that the Ad had been removed? Would they have to start running it again?

Re:Things are way out of hand

[_KiTA_]

Let me preface this by saying that I am a conservative Christian. Now, I have done some research and found out that most electronic devices that emit photons and audio waves have a switch which allows me to turn them off. The effort required to do that is even less than it is for me to get incensed and make a complaint. Why don't other people get this? Don't want to see it? Turn it off. Don't want the kids to see it? Turn it off.

Most of these people complaining are not doing so by their own violation, but rather, they are doing so after being told/commanded to by their social and religious leaders. Simply put, they're told about the ad/book/game/tv show/etc in church, around the coffee table, by their old friends, etc, and the Alpha of the group has them all write letters off to whomever they think might cowtow to them, trying to essentially blackmail the stations into submission.

The truly sad thing is that it works -- and that the attack drones don't even have to have ever seen the show to begin with. (Or do you really believe a few hundred thousand conservative Christians listen to Howard Stern and got upset about it?) It's rather sad that the Moral Majority has been reduced to trained howler monkeys, ready to fling poo on command, but, well, there ya have it.

They do the same thing with pretty much anything they don't like. Music, video games, websites, you name it. And it's only going to get worse now that they succeeded once against Howard Stern.

Re:Explain to a two year old?

[1u3hr]

I see it as 80 people who shouldn't have been allowed to breed.