PSP ads escape UK ban

Sony's European gaming arm has escaped censure in the UK despite a barrage of complaints from the public about a high-profile poster campaign. The series of advertisements for the PlayStation Portable, created by TBWA London on behalf of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, drew 45 complaints from the public.

The posters in question used four lines: "Strong language and scenes of a sexual nature here", "Your girlfriend's white bits here", "Take a running jump here", and "Saucy emails won't get you fired here". The adverts were run primarily on billboards and buses, as well as other outdoor sites.

According to the Advertising Standards Authority, complainants alleged that the adverts encouraged "violent or anti-social behaviour, particularly among young people" and were "offensive, irresponsible and unsuitable to be seen by children". A single complainant was offended seeing one of the adverts near a church, while another thought that the adverts could encourage younger PSP owners to take and store indecent photos of other children.

TBWA mounted a robust defence of these claims, saying the adverts played on the PlayStation brand's irreverent advertising history, and simply focused on the four features they wanted to highlight: the ability to view and store photos, the ability to browse the Web wirelessly, the ability to play platform games, and the ability to watch movies. All of the complaints were rejected in the Advertising Standards Authority's final adjudication.

The ASA ruled that while some of the adverts could be seen as "bawdy" they were "not likely to cause serious or widespread offence", and it did "not consider it likely that people would be encouraged to act irresponsibly or jump near traffic" as a result of the campaign.

David Wilson, Head of PR at Sony Computer Entertainment UK, indicated to GameSpot that the company was pleased the ads had not been deemed offensive, but was quick to point out that causing offence was never the intention of the campaign. "The campaign did not set out to be controversial. In fact, whilst we set out to be humorous--cheeky, even--we tasked our media buying agency quite stringently with not placing the ads in specific places where they may cause offence."

He also told GameSpot that the response to the campaign had thrown up some points for discussion. "There is a high degree of subjectivity in what some people will find reason to complain about. I feel there is a very interesting debate to be had about the power of words. These creatives were purely words--words in fact that can be seen on the packaging of many other home entertainment media which do not cause the same response."

Further PSP promotion along similar lines may be in the pipeline, although specific details are unavailable at this stage. The full text of the ruling can be found on the ASA's Web site.