Award-Winning Ad Taken Off Air In Australia

bol_kernal writes "An award-winning advertisement on Australian TV for the new Hyundai 4WD has been pulled from being broadcast after stations received 80 complaints from concerned parents. The ad consists of a small child, age around 2 years, cruising down the road, window down, arm out the window, in his new Hyundai 4WD. He sees a girl of the same age standing on the side of the road, pulls over picks her up, and they go to the beach together. All in all it's cute, funny, and very well done. The ad aired late in the evening (8:30 pm or later), but it was pulled due to concern from parents about the copycat risk. What I want to know is, where has the responsibility of parents gone? Is the world becoming so serious — or so frightened — that fantasy is no longer allowed?"

Simple answer: YES

[Teddy Beartuzzi (727169)]

Geezus, we even had folks complaining about a *robot* who had a *nightmare* about suicide.

Re:Simple answer: YES

[smaddox (928261)]

The way I see it, with the amount of time it took to complain to the network about the commercial, the parents could have easily talked to their children and made sure they understood not to copy it.

For some reason, these parents think ignorance is better for their children than knowing about and understanding an issue.

There is truth in The Onion

[myowntrueself (607117)]

Its high time that the sterling advice to be found on The Onion were taken more seriously by parents:

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/child_safety_ experts_call_for [theonion.com]

Kenneth McMillan is a hero of the American People!!!

Re:Explain to a two year old?

[Oligonicella (659917)]

Uh, you know this is /. right? Consider the probability of the posters here having:

1) Being old enough to have had children.
2) Being unselfish enough to have had children.
3) Having had sex.

I mean, read the posts already generated about reasoning with a 2 year old.

Re:Explain to a two year old?

[elrous0 (869638)]

Here is something I've noticed about my 2 year old nephew. He doesn't know how to start a car, release a handbrake, or put in a car in gear. Nor would his feet even reach the peddles, should the urge hit him to drive to the beach.

If there is a 2-year-old out there smart enough to start up a car and drive it to the beach, I say let them go. They've earned it.

-Eric

Re:Explain to a two year old?

[MrHops (712514)]

I know you this was meant to be funny, but it hits a little close to home. For all of you who think you have your kids under control, I offer this true story:

Our 2 1/2 year old, in the space of about five minutes (or less) managed to get the keys from the hook where we keep them (about 5' from the floor), crawl through the doggie door into the garage, chirp the car open (keyless entry), get into the car and start it up. Our first warning was the engine starting, at which point we ran into the garage to see him extremely happy, with hazard lights and windshield wipers going to beat the band.

Very unsettling.

Luckily for us, he understands and obeys us when we absolutely forbid something. (Playing with power tools, going near the road, starting the car, starting the tractor, etc)

For those of you ready to flame me for my lack of preparedness, I keep the circuit breaker for the power tools off, the keys to the car and tractor are on hooks (in different places) at least 5' from the ground, I have put up a 4' no-climb fence around our yard, and generally keep the house reasonably safe. The main problem is that the use of stools and ladders present little difficulty to this adventurous inquisitive child. :-)

Re:Explain to a two year old?

[1u3hr (530656)]

I see it as 80 people who shouldn't have been allowed to breed.

Re:Explain to a two year old?

[ibbey (27873)]

You've obviously never had a young child. What you and apparently thousands of others (or at least three or four) here fail to understand is that you cannot control your children.

I know an awful lot of parents of well-behaved children who don't seem to have this problem. Perhaps it is YOU who can't control your children?

Regradless, you seem to be ignoring something important here. There are MANY things in the world that children could copy & end up hurting themselves. Should society ban all of them? In the car, they are much more likely to try to emulate you driving than the TV characters, so should you be banned from driving? Bugs Bunny drives-- without a seatbelt & often well over the speed limit even. Should Looney Tunes be banned? As another poster pointed out, should Peter Pan be banned since it makes children think that they can fly? Where do we stop?

No matter how carefully you try to avoid it, sooner or later your children will be exposed to a situation where they have to use their reasoning ability to make sure that they stay safe. All you are accomplishing by banning this ad is eliminating an opportunity to explain to your children why this behavior is bad and helping them to refine their critical thinking.

But if actual parenting is to much work for you, perhaps you should just put your two year old to bed before 8:30 PM? Then the entire problem goes away and no censorship is required.

Commercials because you deserve it

[Steeltoe (98226)]

These commercials are incidious. Just like you dont get handsome, smart, creative and out-going from drinking Coca-Cola, but rather you may get more pimples, the sugar/caffeiene rush may boost you for a few minutes, and then over the longer run you get more dull and slow-witted.

You will be sure some kid will try this because it is shown on TV. Its not the parents job to foresee everything the child might do due to watching TV.

Rather, it is the parents duty today to bring up the kids without resorting to the TV and videogames.

Upbringing based on real-life, with real risks and real pain. Talking doesnt help when youre already living in a virtual reality. People talk about things all the time, complain about what should be done in the community. Talk is cheap. If you believe you have only one life, you better start to really live it.

It's things like this...

[exell (1065256)]

That re-enforce my view that 1984 should be made required reading in every form of education. It's downright scary that it's not a government that is doing this, it's actual citizens, why do things yourself when you can convince everyone else to do it for you?

Re:It's things like this...

[poot_rootbeer (188613)]

my view that 1984 should be made required reading in every form of education.

Because the best way to inoculate people against authoritarianism is to force them to read something?

Re:Simple answer: YES

[cdrdude (904978)]

Your link is broken, you've got an extra character in there. This should be right: http://youtube.com/watch?v=6GfdyIZcRH4 [youtube.com]

I for one am glad it's gone...

[Alicat1194 (970019)]

It wasn't sweet, or cute, it was disturbing, and wrong on so many levels... (apparently small, unnaturaly placed children disturb me)

Re:

[pembo13 (770295)]

Maybe you should see a doctor about that.

Re:I for one am glad it's gone...

[dont_run (1050730)]

Maybe. But if the ad should be pulled, then maybe children should be blindfolded to ride on cars, right? Otherwise, they will see a parent driving the car and will get "ideas"...

Kids regard their parents as models much more than something from the telly. Even bad parents.

Re:I for one am glad it's gone...

[AGMW (594303)]

What if more people now complained that the Ad had been removed? Would they have to start running it again?

Re:I for one am glad it's gone...

[by Anonymous Coward]

No. She was hitching a ride. And he was probably going to rape her.

You've got no fantasy ;)

Complain!

[arlo5724 (172574)]

Hypothesizing about fantasy amounts to fantasizing! I move to have this story removed from /. Sign below.

From the Only in America dept.

[Simon Garlick (104721)]

In case you hadn't noticed, Australia is a de facto state of the USA now.

So you're the ones

[Infonaut (96956)]

I always wondered where all the Bush voters came from.

Re:So you're the ones

[commodoresloat (172735)]

I always wondered where all the Bush voters came from.

Nah; folks in the Bush don't vote much.... it's the ones in the cities you've got to worry about, mate!

Bugger

[TapeCutter (624760)]

As an Aussie may I be the first to say "bugger!" [bestofyt.com].

Yeah we are like the states, in that we are also continually embarassed by our official representatives. They played the ad on the (after hours) news and talk shows the other night, I doubt it will stay banned for long. Besides, it doesn't really matter now since more or less all 20 million of us have paid some attention to it for free.

My hunch is all 80 of them belong to the bunch of neo-nazi's that call themselves the "Family first" party.

It's also interesting to note that this happened on the same weekend that Dick Chenney came to town. Security ground Sydney to a halt while Dick enjoyed a taxpayer funded $2M "beer with the PM", and (with not a little irony), pontificated about "violence and disruption".

"We want David Hicks back.": Our PM and AG will "do everything they can" except utter those five words since well they would...ummm....hand him over, as they have for every other nation after the US supreme court desicion was made a few years ago. This and several other issues has now made the PM's own seat in parliment very vunerable in the next election, (4% swing is required to unseat him). BTW: Please don't use the above information to infer the opposition are in any way more competent than the current crop.

Re:Bugger

[evilgrug (915703)]

Despite what the link says that commercial was not banned in Australia or New Zealand.

In Australia it received a very small number of complaints. It did get upgraded to a PG rating meaning it could not be aired until 7:30pm, however. New Zealanders appeared to be a little more upset about it, but it wasn't banned.

Toyota voluntarily restricted the airing of the commercial until after 8:30pm in both countries.

Yes

[Infonaut (96956)]

Is the world becoming so serious -- or so frightened -- that fantasy is no longer allowed?"

With one caveat. If it involves wealthy actors who play married hitmen trying to kill each other with everything from knives to rocket launchers, it's ok [imdb.com]. Same thing with movies depicting armies systematically destroying each other with machine guns, bombs, flamethrowers, etc. Basically, the bigger the magnitude of the killing, destruction, and carnage, the more acceptable. The smaller the scale, the more freaked out people get.

Re:Yes

[omeg (907329)]

The smaller the scale, the more freaked out people get.

Well, APPARENTLY! Did you see how many complaints they got? OVER 80!!! That's no less than over 0.000004% of the population!

Re:Yes

[catwh0re (540371)]

In Australia we have a law against advertising which involves displaying driving activity which is technically illegal.

The law was made because the major "australian" car manufacturer and their primary opposition (ford) were both glamourising speeding, burn outs, doughnuts etc. in car advertisements. I doubt the law was ever meant to cover situations which are technically difficult to reproduce.. afterall hyperbole is permitted in advertising (as long as it's evidently hyperbole and thus not misleading.)

Re:

[nkv (604544)]

If parents don't want their kids to watch stuff like this, they should stop their kids from watching stuff like this, not call the TV station to take it off the air. They're "parents". That's a title that entails some amount of responsibility.

There is a better option which is to throw the TV out the window and get it over with. Almost everything that comes on it is not worth watching anyway but that's a suggestion that'll most probably get me branded as a luddite.

Re:Yes

[j1m+5n0w (749199)]

**OR**, you could explain to your child why it's a bad idea to immitate that ad

Newsflash: children don't always do as their told, and can't be monitored 24/7 (parents have to sleep sometime).

so making them do an extremely unpleasant task would stop them

No, it wouldn't. It would compel them to do it in secret.

Obviously they can't do it without your permission, since as a good parent you would keep your keys somewhere safe as you would with the poisons, knives, (guns?), electric powertools, exposed electric circuits etc.

I'm not a parent, myself. What you say is a good idea, but one that not everyone will follow. Children are notorious for finding things that their parents think are well hidden, and it's hard to expect every parent to stick their keys in, say, a combination safe every night before going to sleep.

What would you think of an ad that depicted small children apparently having fun while playing with poisons, using knifes, shooting firearms, operating power tools, or installing an electrical outlet? Does that sound like a good idea to you? I'm all for personal responsibility in most things, but children don't always have adequate judgment, so I think the world is a safer place if we don't encourage them to do dangerous things.

Youtube link

[physicsnick (1031656)]

Here's the ad on Youtube:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=g37Z8Scbj8E [youtube.com]

Things are way out of hand

[El Cubano (631386)]

All in all it's cute, funny, and very well done. The ad aired late in the evening (8:30 pm or later), but it was pulled due to concern from parents about the copycat risk. What I want to know is, where has the responsibility of parents gone? Is the world becoming so serious -- or so frightened -- that fantasy is no longer allowed?"

Let me preface this by saying that I am a conservative Christian. Now, I have done some research and found out that most electronic devices that emit photons and audio waves have a switch which allows me to turn them off. The effort required to do that is even less than it is for me to get incensed and make a complaint. Why don't other people get this? Don't want to see it? Turn it off. Don't want the kids to see it? Turn it off.

Re:Things are way out of hand

[blue.strider (737082)]

There are more shades of grey in the world that just completely shutting off the TV. The shade of grey missing here is that ads have no pre-announced schedule. If one sees the War-Of-Worlds in the TV Guide, one may keep his/her kids away of the TV for the duration. But the ads may come our of the nowhere in the middle of any random program, and effectively prevent one from choosing between individual TV programs.

(Side discussion: This also indicates a certain fundamentally dishonest nature of ads, which is implicitly admitted by the perpetrators as they avoid to be fully open about the ad schedule).

Re:Things are way out of hand

[DamnStupidElf (649844)]

Let me preface this by saying that I am a conservative Christian. Now, I have done some research and found out that most electronic devices that emit photons and audio waves have a switch which allows me to turn them off. The effort required to do that is even less than it is for me to get incensed and make a complaint. Why don't other people get this? Don't want to see it? Turn it off. Don't want the kids to see it? Turn it off.

My guess is it's the people who leave their kids with the TV all night and always leave their keys in the car (possibly in the ignition) who are the most irate. "What if junior craws into the garage and starts the car because of what he done seen on teevee?" Turning a free babysitter off or remembering where they put their keys are things that are fundamentally beyond the intelligence of the type of people who are complaining.

While I don't mind seeing stupid people die, their children shouldn't be doomed to the same fate. Statistically, only 50% of stupid people's children are themselves stupid, so we should at least protect the 25% of smart children with stupid parents, hmm?

Re:Things are way out of hand

[the_womble (580291)]

Its because the parent are too addicted to the TV themselves to turn it off.

People are astonished that we do not have a TV. It is good for us, and good for our daughter. However, most people would no more give up their TV, any more than a heroin addict will give up their drug.

Re:

[Gordonjcp (186804)]

Why don't other people get this? Don't want to see it? Turn it off. Don't want the kids to see it? Turn it off.

That's a very good point, and the line that I take with stuff on TV I find offensive. However, it's not that this is offensive - what we have is the *exact opposite* of all those public safety films that we grew up with saying "Don't get into cars with strangers". You remember this [youtube.com] don't you?

Re:Things are way out of hand

[nEoN nOoDlE (27594)]

but what about all those hundreds or thousands of other kids that might be seeing it? I, as an innocent bystander can be driving around minding my own business and get rear ended by a damn 2 year old going to the beach with his girlfriend, all because that ad was on the air.

Re:Things are way out of hand

[_KiTA_ (241027)]

Let me preface this by saying that I am a conservative Christian. Now, I have done some research and found out that most electronic devices that emit photons and audio waves have a switch which allows me to turn them off. The effort required to do that is even less than it is for me to get incensed and make a complaint. Why don't other people get this? Don't want to see it? Turn it off. Don't want the kids to see it? Turn it off.

Most of these people complaining are not doing so by their own violation, but rather, they are doing so after being told/commanded to by their social and religious leaders. Simply put, they're told about the ad/book/game/tv show/etc in church, around the coffee table, by their old friends, etc, and the Alpha of the group has them all write letters off to whomever they think might cowtow to them, trying to essentially blackmail the stations into submission.

The truly sad thing is that it works -- and that the attack drones don't even have to have ever seen the show to begin with. (Or do you really believe a few hundred thousand conservative Christians listen to Howard Stern and got upset about it?) It's rather sad that the Moral Majority has been reduced to trained howler monkeys, ready to fling poo on command, but, well, there ya have it.

They do the same thing with pretty much anything they don't like. Music, video games, websites, you name it. And it's only going to get worse now that they succeeded once against Howard Stern.

kids these days...

[RelliK (4466)]

Don't give those crazy 2-year-olds any ideas!

Obvious flaw

[mainform (892764)]

How on earth is a toddler going to reach the accelerator and brake pedals in any regular car, let alone a 4WD, whilst being strapped in to the driver's seat, especially given there's no way he could have been able to see over the dash board without sitting on a cushion or something?

Re:

[skelly33 (891182)]

All it takes is a toddler with the idea that "releasing the parking brake would be fun" to cause a problem. But paranoia will not make the world "safe" for children. The world, and Universe on whole, is a hostile place and parents need to come to grips with that and, as a previous poster mentioned, take responsibility for teaching common sense themselves. I say down with the easily offended.

This is getting pathetic...

[GFree (853379)]

People getting scared, frightened about the most innocent things.

There is a saying I've heard many a time: HARDEN THE FUCK UP. Seriously, if people keep raising hell about such trivial matters, soon there won't be any imagination, any creativity, any fun in the world. People will be afraid to do ANYTHING due to lawsuits.

It will be a truly dull place to live in.

VERY dangerous to children

[ChePibe (882378)]

Whoa, whoa, whoa! I think we're all missing the point here, folks! It's not the kids driving and picking up kids, but how they're driving.

Two-year olds driving, yeah, that's cool, but what if they start acting out what they see on TV and driving on the left side of the road? Trying to steer the car from the passenger side? What kind of example is the media setting for our kids?

Won't someone think of the CHILDREN!

Crazy foreigners, corrupting our American youth...

Yes, I realize non-U.S. citizens read /.

Re:

[The One and Only (691315)]

Alright, which one of you moderators thought that would be funny?

Copy cat?

[Motley Phule (946796)]

We had the ad screening here for quite a while in NZ. It's a two year old driving a car, for pete's sake. How can they be worried about copycat crimes? Two year old's still think throwing poo is fun... which it is... but that's beside the point.

Well

[Jethro (14165)]

To be fair, the kid is driving like a maniac.

Re:It seems to be a touchy subject.... but

[TubeSteak (669689)]

I don't know how you got modded insightful. Maybe 3 sentances in your entire rant discussed the issue in TFA/Summary.

This happened in Australia, so all your talk about religion, sep of church & state, etc. is so far off base I don't know where to begin.

Anyways, here's what TFA says

"But under the Advertising for Motor Vehicles Voluntary Code of Practice, fantasy cannot be used when it contradicts, circumvents or undermines the code.

"Many of the complaints were from parents concerned that the ad would encourage copy-cat behaviour in young children and might lead to accidents."

The board also found that the fact the toddlers were wearing seatbelts - instead of approved child restraints - also breached safety recommendations.

So, if it was just the complaints, it is likely that nothing would have happened.

BUT, as it turns out, a literal reading of the applicable Code suggests to The Advertising Standards Board that the complaints are legitimate.

This is exactly why there are government agencies who do such investigations.

Re:

[TodMinuit (1026042)]

This has nothing to do with religion. This is a bunch of do gooders who think they are smarter than everyone else, and therefore, have the duty to step into the lives of others. It's called "Liberal Fascism" and seems to be growing by the day.

Re:Nothing has changed

[TodMinuit (1026042)]

Responible parenting means taking responability for parenting your child. It does not mean having the Government step in and do it for you.

Instead of complaining about the ad, it would have been better to talk to their children about it.

Re:

[DerekLyons (302214)]

Responible parenting means taking responability for parenting your child. It does not mean having the Government step in and do it for you.

Had the goverment stepped in - you'd have a point. But it didn't. The goverment responded to concerns, which is very different from 'stepping in'. (I shouldn't have to point out that responding to the concerns of its citizens is one of the basic functions of goverment.)

Re:Nothing has changed

[no reason to be here (218628)]

If you had a child who, after seeing this ad, decided to run out and take off in your SUV, and was able to get away with it, there are problems with your parenting so deep and serious that it doesn't matter how many commercials you manage to have banned; your kids are fucked.

responsible parenting has gone somewhere; in the process, it also grabbed hold of some of our liberties and took off with them.

Re:Nothing has changed

[Ant P. (974313)]

To be honest, if you've got kids that age who know how to get into your 4WD, start it up, have the strength to pull the handbrake off, and can drive stick... they should really be in a circus.