An advert for Scottish Power together with designer and television speaker George Clarke has really been prohibited for main audiences to imagine they had been having fun with a program.
The tv commercial, seen on Channel 4 in July, consisted of message specifying “George Clarke’s amazing green spaces”, previous to Clarke himself said: “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 assorted colors had been 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 commercial had the message “#ad” within the main proper edge.
Three audiences whined that the commercial was not undoubtedly considerable from George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces television program.
Scottish Power said they thought the commercial was plainly recognisable due to this all through.
Aside from the “#ad”, it said Scottish Power gadgets, there have been spoken referrals to Scottish Power inside Clarke’s dialogue and the Scottish Power brand design included on the again of the coat of 1 particular person and in the end construction.
Overall, 43 secs out of the general 60-second clip had an aesthetic identifier which indicated to the customer that it was an commercial.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said the commercial broadcast all through breaks round George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces tv program.
The commercial made use of the very same typeface and design of message as this system, and it was moreover established versus a historical past of plant equally it existed in Clarke’s program.
The guard canine said the “#ad” within the main proper 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 said: “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 start of the advert and the tv programme, we thought of the viewers had been more likely to interpret the advert as programme content material.
“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 said its “advertising partnership with George Clarke and C4’s Amazing Spaces brought together everything we strive to do for customers”.
