'Exploits and degrades the instrument': Pink Batts ad upsets recorder players

ASA dismissed the complaint, saying the ad was unlikely to cause widespread offence. Photo / YouTube

The Recorders and Early Music Union did not like the sound of the latest ad for Pink Batts and filed an official complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).

However, ASA has ruled that the ad is not out of tune.

The ad for Pink Batts' Silencer features a man wearing a pink onesie and playing a recorder, while a woman checks the noise reduction levels provided by the insulation, from the other side of the wall.

Pleased with the fact that no one has to hear how badly he plays the recorder, the man in the onesie says: "I love Pink Batts Silencer".

"The advertisement includes a recorder and makes use of the stereotype current in NZ that the instrument should not be taken seriously and should be an object for derision," the complaint lodged by the Recorders and Early Music Union said.

"It exploits and degrades the instrument and our efforts to promote it for artistic and recreational purposes."

According to the union, the ad broke two sections of the Advertising Standards Code. The group considered it did not have a "due sense of social responsibility to consumers and to society" and gave "rise to hostility, contempt, abuse or ridicule".

The ASA dismissed the complaint explaining the poorly played recorder was merely used as an example of a noise that some people wouldn't like to hear.

"The chair said the recorder may have been chosen because it is often the first musical instrument that is taught to school children and, as a result, it is likely to be associated with unskilled technique," ASA said, adding that it was unlikely that the ad would cause "widespread offence".