Creative laptop-in-the-bath ad banned
Shorty
Manchester, UK Icrontian
I won't deny that this made me laugh...
Creative Labs Europe ran an ad for its SoundBlaster audio product featuring a woman in a bath using a laptop hooked up to a pair of speakers. Under the headline "Immerse Yourself - In Sound" the ad suggested that people looking to chill-out could "Turn your notebook, or desktop PC, into an audio entertainment centre for music, movies and gaming."
Having had their wrist firmly slapped by the advertising standards chaps, the spin-meisters at Creative Labs went into damage limitation mode.
Unfortunately, their explanation for the advert: that the laptop was safe to use in a bath when it was only running on battery power because of the low voltage, was equally shocking.
Snag is, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) received a complaint which pointed out that the ad was "irresponsible because it encouraged a dangerous practice". Creative disagreed, saying that it did not intend to encourage anyone to act so foolishly.
The ad was "not meant to be a 'real life' representation but a "metaphor for acoustic 'immersion', a term used by PC gamers to describe the experience of surround sound technology".
The use of laptops in the bath was not dangerous because they were battery-powered, low-voltage devices. And even if mains electricity was used, the voltage would be stepped down to battery-levels, Creative said.
This wasn't enough to sway the ASA, which was worried that people might get the wrong idea and think its OK to use electrical gear in the bath. So it upheld the complaint, ruling that the ad "could encourage readers to emulate a dangerous practice" and told Creative not to do it again.
That's the funny right there.
Source: The Register
Creative Labs Europe ran an ad for its SoundBlaster audio product featuring a woman in a bath using a laptop hooked up to a pair of speakers. Under the headline "Immerse Yourself - In Sound" the ad suggested that people looking to chill-out could "Turn your notebook, or desktop PC, into an audio entertainment centre for music, movies and gaming."
Having had their wrist firmly slapped by the advertising standards chaps, the spin-meisters at Creative Labs went into damage limitation mode.
Unfortunately, their explanation for the advert: that the laptop was safe to use in a bath when it was only running on battery power because of the low voltage, was equally shocking.
Snag is, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) received a complaint which pointed out that the ad was "irresponsible because it encouraged a dangerous practice". Creative disagreed, saying that it did not intend to encourage anyone to act so foolishly.
The ad was "not meant to be a 'real life' representation but a "metaphor for acoustic 'immersion', a term used by PC gamers to describe the experience of surround sound technology".
The use of laptops in the bath was not dangerous because they were battery-powered, low-voltage devices. And even if mains electricity was used, the voltage would be stepped down to battery-levels, Creative said.
This wasn't enough to sway the ASA, which was worried that people might get the wrong idea and think its OK to use electrical gear in the bath. So it upheld the complaint, ruling that the ad "could encourage readers to emulate a dangerous practice" and told Creative not to do it again.
That's the funny right there.
Source: The Register
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