For fork's sake! Controversial ad can keep on trucking after complaint fails

An outraged citizen offended by a Dunedin company's advertising wordplay will be forked off after his complaint was rejected.

The angered complainant took their indignation over Forktruck Specialists Ltd's campaign to the Advertising Standards Authority.

The complaint was about a 30-second radio advertisement played on The Sound radio station which used the word "fork" in place of a similar-sounding expletive.

The authority noted the sound bite ended with the "gruff" sign-off - "fork yeah".

"I find this offensive, particularly when the word is used about eight times in less than a minute," the complainant wrote.

The authority, however, noted eight times was an exaggeration and threw out the claim, relying on previous precedent-setting cases.

The first concerned a radio advert for a mechanic which included the line: "Aw truck it. My trucking truck is trucked!".

In its decision, the authority took into account the use of humour and the context, medium, audience, product being advertised and decided it was unlikely to cause serious or widespread offence to most people.

It ruled it did not offend against "generally prevailing community standards".

A television advert for Handee Ultra depicting various people cleaning up domestic spills with a paper towel and exclaiming "sheet" each time had the same outcome.

Owner of South Dunedin's Forklift Specialists Darryl Tackney said the complaint had been a surprise, especially since the company had run a similar campaign for 18 months without issue.

The new advert used the same "play on words" and was only a month old, he said.
The radio advert had been a significant cost and was put together to push the rental side of the business.

However, Tackney did not want to criticise the complainant.

"I don't want to be insensitive to people's views and opinions.

"We thought about it before we ran the ads. The idea was to gain respect in the community, not to upset people."

He was happy with the authority's decision and although it had deemed the advert
complied with standards, there would be changes.

Instead of being aired on The Sound - targeted at males aged 35 to 59 - it would now be played on The Rock, "which had a target audience aged 24 to 44 and had a reputation for pushing boundaries", he said.