A social media advert for a vegan charity, seen in May 2023, has been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).
ASA received seven complaints that the advert for Viva! was likely to cause unnecessary distress and serious and widespread offence and was irresponsibly targeted because it had been seen by children.
It decided that the advert was “likely to cause serious or widespread offence and unjustified distress to adults and children”.
The charity said the ruling by ASA was “unjust and smacks of censorship”.
Charity: Advert aimed at adults
The advert featured a video of a woman opening a yoghurt, whilst upbeat music played, the lid of which was labelled: “Killer Yoghurt. Flavoured with a mother’s grief.”
A voiceover stated: “New from Killer Yoghurts, the umbilical cord flavour. Produced with only the finest ingredients, the stolen milk of grieving mothers. Taste the torment in every mouthful. Blended with brutality. Be complicit, with Killer Yoghurts.”
The woman was shown smiling and taking a spoonful of the corner part of the yoghurt, which was filled with bloody and raw offal meat.
Blood was then shown dripping from her mouth and there was a close-up of a spoon mixing yoghurt with the bloody meat products. The woman was shown smiling, with blood on her teeth, lips and dripping down her chin after licking the lid of the yoghurt. An indoor dairy farming shed filled with cows was then featured.
The complainants challenged whether the ads were likely to cause unnecessary distress and serious and widespread offence, and also whether they were irresponsibly targeted because they had been seen by children.
Viva! said the ad was a theatrically staged parody and that viewers would understand that the blood in the yoghurt pot was not real. They had wanted to expose aspects of dairy farming that consumers did not see and were using parody to highlight the hypocrisy of companies which claimed their farms had high welfare standards.
The charity said the ad was targeted at adults who would all be aware that meat, dairy, offal and blood were part of the everyday UK diet. They believed that viewers were increasingly numbed to shock factors like death and violence on TV.
ASA said the charity gave the example of TV programmes that included tasks involving real blood and participants eating animal parts. They believed the ad was mild in comparison.
As a result of that context and because the ad was clearly a parody, Viva! believed it would not offend an adult audience, the ASA said.
Viva! said they had paid for advertising on Meta platforms and on YouTube. They had targeted over 18-year-olds and had chosen particular audience demographics – meat eaters, vegans, dairy and vegetarian eaters and animal lovers. They said that Meta and YouTube did not allow them to target people aged under 18.
ASA: Imagery likely to shock
However, ASA stated: “Although we acknowledged people would understand the ad was intended as a comment on animal welfare, we considered the graphic and gory imagery was likely to shock and cause a sense of disgust.
“We considered that the juxtaposition of the woman’s happy and wholesome demeanour with graphic close-ups of blood and offal was likely to further highlight the graphic and gory imagery.
“We also considered language such as ‘the umbilical cord flavour’, ‘… The stolen milk of grieving mothers. Taste the torment in every mouthful. Blended with brutality. Be complicit, with Killer yoghurts’, alongside the graphic and gory imagery, was likely to be seen as frightening and distressing to children in particular.”
It said that an ad referencing animal welfare might cause distress to some people and, in light of the language and gory scenes, considered the distress likely to be caused by this ad, particularly to children, was unjustified.
ASA therefore concluded that the ad was likely to cause serious or widespread offence, and unjustified distress. It understood the ad had been seen by children on Facebook Watch, Duolingo and an online educational game.
“Notwithstanding that the ad was inappropriate for a general audience, because the ad was likely to cause distress to children and had been seen by a child, we considered whether it had been targeted away from them to minimise the risk of children seeing it,” it said.
It concluded Viva’s exclusions had proved insufficient to prevent the ad from being seen on apps that were likely to appeal to children.
“We therefore concluded that the targeting exclusions had been insufficient to target the ad away from children,” it said.
The ad must not appear again in the form complained about, ASA said.
“We told Viva! to ensure future ads were prepared responsibly, were appropriately targeted and did not contain graphic scenes or language that were likely to cause unjustified distress to viewers,” ASA said.
Charity Commission data for the financial year ending 31 March 2022 puts the charity’s total income at £1.2m.
Charity: Ruling is unjust
Viva!’s founder and director Juliet Gellatley said: “This ruling by the ASA is unjust and smacks of censorship. The New From Killer Yoghurts advert is an obvious parody, designed to draw attention to the suffering that dairy cows experience every day. Over three million people saw Viva!’s advert, but following just seven complaints, the ASA decided to shut it down. This is ludicrous and perhaps has more to do with our ad making people think about the reality of the dairy industry.
“Adverts for meat and dairy products that falsely show farmed animals living in idyll are allowed to be shown despite them portraying staggeringly fake realities. Viva! has provided evidence that shows it was a third party who incorrectly showed our advert to children without our knowledge; however, this was totally disregarded by the ASA. They have banned adults from seeing the ad which makes no sense. People see far more shocking images on TV, films and computer games all the time – in today’s world our ad is not deeply distressing!
“The ASA is not a government organisation; the work they do is funded by the advertising industry. Given how they turn a blind eye to blatantly false claims made by the meat and dairy industries yet jump on anything potentially seen as controversial by organisations such as Viva!, it appears clear where their loyalties lie.”
The ASA previously upheld a complaint made about posters displayed on buses by Viva! that linked drinking cow’s milk with cancer.
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