Delta has agreed to remove the word ‘blerrie” from its advertising campaign for the Isuzu 300TDI bakkie after complaints from the public. What do you think of the ad?
Delta has agreed to remove the word ‘blerrie” from its advertising campaign for the Isuzu 300TDI bakkie after complaints from the public. What do you think of the ad?
The ads featured people bemoaning the fact they no longer received attention since “that blerrie bakkie came to town” and a mother complaining that no one looked at her daughter, Marietjie, anymore since the “blerrie bakkie came to Dewetsdorp”.
The Advertising Standards Authority told it had received complaints from six people about the use of the world “blerrie” in the ads.
The complainants felt the word was bad language and upsetting. One person said it was difficult for them to have to explain to children why it was necessary to use such language on television and radio.
The complaints admitted the word was used every day, but felt it did not belong on television.
Delta’s ad agency, Network BBDO, said it did not think the ad would affect normal people who were not “hypersensitive’, but had agreed to make changes.
The world “blerrie” would not be spoken or shown on television, radio or print ads. They said they would not replace it with a similar word.
Media commentator Chris Moerdyk, who runs www.marketingweb.co.za, told CARtoday.com that the complaints were ludicrous. “These are really good ads. They are different and typically South African and that’s the way people speak in South Africa,” he said.
Moerdyk described the complaints as the “ongoing cancer affecting SA advertisements. One or two of these Mother Grundies complain about almost every ad and the problem is that the ASA has to act even if it is just one complaint. It was discovered recently that out of 20 ads that were removed, for six or seven of them the complaint had come from the same person, who has apparently appointed himself as the guardian of our morality,” he said.
Moerdyk said a recent suggestion was to make the people who complained about an ad pay the costs of looking into it if the ad was declared fair and inoffensive.
He also pointed out that the cost of changing all the adverts would be huge. “Ads cost a lot to produce and even to just delete one word could cost a fortune, plus it destroys the ad,” Moerdyk said.
Do you think Delta should have to remove the word “blerrie” from the Isuzu ads?
