An advert for Scottish Power including designer and tv speaker George Clarke has actually been prohibited for leading audiences to assume they were enjoying a program.
The television advertisement, seen on Channel 4 in July, consisted of message specifying “George Clarke’s amazing green spaces”, prior to Clarke himself stated: “I’ve seen some amazing spaces all around the UK. From great tree houses, to log cabins, and house boats. Oh, and don’t forget about the hobbit house in Gwent, that was truly amazing.”
As residences of various colours were revealed, he proceeded: “From yellow houses, blue houses, pink houses, and … greener houses, like this one. Of course, it’s not about the colour, it’s all about the green solutions provided by Scottish Power. So why not make your amazing space even more amazing by turning it a little greener?”
The initially 12 secs of the advertisement had the message “#ad” in the leading right edge.
Three audiences whined that the advertisement was not undoubtedly appreciable from George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces tv program.
Scottish Power stated they thought the advertisement was plainly recognisable because of this throughout.
Aside from the “#ad”, it stated Scottish Power items, there were spoken referrals to Scottish Power within Clarke’s discussion and the Scottish Power logo design included on the back of the coat of one person and ultimately structure.
Overall, 43 secs out of the overall 60-second clip had an aesthetic identifier which indicated to the visitor that it was an advertisement.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) stated the advertisement broadcast throughout breaks around George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces television program.
The advertisement made use of the exact same typeface and design of message as the program, and it was additionally established versus a history of plant similarly it existed in Clarke’s program.
The guard dog stated the “#ad” in the leading right edge for the very first 12 secs was “insufficient to mitigate the other elements in the ad, which were reminiscent of George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces television programme”.
It stated: “As such, we considered viewers were likely to believe, at least initially, that they were watching a programme.”
The ASA proceeded: “Given the similarity between the beginning of the ad and the television programme, we considered the audience were likely to interpret the ad as programme content.
“For the reasons given, we considered viewers were unlikely to quickly recognise the message as an ad distinguishable from editorial content and were instead likely to believe they were watching a programme.”
A Scottish Power spokesperson stated its “advertising partnership with George Clarke and C4’s Amazing Spaces brought together everything we strive to do for customers”.
