Milk shake ad stirs up most complaints

A record number of advertisements agitated people enough to make a formal complaint to the Advertising Standards Complaints Board last year.

The ad that stirred people up most was for a new milk shake drink, featuring a hand gesture that 23 television viewers found offensive enough to fire off a letter to the board.

The next most complained-about ad in 2005 was Toyota's commercial in which two animated bulls hijack a farmer's ute to impress two cows and call a ram a "sheep shagger".

The board's annual report released last week says it received 679 complaints about 461 ads -- a new high -- in 2005 compared with 722 complaints about 459 ads the previous year.

Advertising Standards Authority executive director Hilary Souter said the volume of complaints the board received has remained about the same for three or four years.

"It does depend often on the profile of the ad. For example, when we had the (Toyota) 'bugger' ad we had over 120 complaints about that," she told NZPA.

"If it's an ad that particularly generates complaints that pushes the overall number up."

Ms Souter said people now had a greater awareness of the complaints system and were more willing to make the effort to complain so their point was heard.

The highest category of complaints in 2005 was that ads were misleading with 30.8 per cent of complaints and the second highest category was "offensive/social responsibility" at 30.2 per cent.

Television attracted most complaints, 34.6 per cent compared with 35.6 per cent in 2004. Newspapers attracted 12.2 per cent (15.2 per cent in 2004), addressed and unaddressed mail 10.2 per cent (8.4 per cent) and complaints about website advertising continued to increase with 7.3 per cent of all complaints (6.7 per cent).

Of the substantive complaints handled by the board last year, 54 per cent were upheld or settled.

Neither the complaint against Mainland Products' Supashake ad, nor the complaint against Toyota's Hilux Ute ad were upheld -- although in each case a minority of the board found the ad offensive.

In the Supashake ad a young man walks along the street with the drink and a number of people, including an elderly woman, use a hand gesture to show him that the drink should be shaken before being consumed.

Although the complaint linked the gesture to male masturbation, the majority of the board found it was an accurate, if humorous, way of showing the drink needed to be well shaken.

- NZPA