The advertising watchdog has cleared a Motorola ad featuring a fashion designer who appears to have had his face slashed by a mobile phone, despite 160 complaints that it condoned knife violence.
The press ad, which ranks as one of the top 10 most complained about campaigns of the year, appeared in national newspapers including the Telegraph, the Times, and the Sunday Times.
The campaign, for the MOTO RAZR V3, showed Dolce and Gabbana - who designed the phone - standing together, with one sporting a cut across his cheek.
Complainants thought that the ad was offensive and irresponsible because it seemed to condone knife-related violence and, in particular, to glamorise sexual violence.
Motorola said it had created a visual metaphor between a barber's razor and the RAZR phone to highlight the "razor" thinness of the phone and its cutting edge technology.
The company argued that the ad, featuring the designers themselves, was stylised and artistic and, as such, did not seek to represent a realistic depiction of a razor cut or an act of aggression.
Motorola added that the overall image projected was not one of violence and did not glamorise sexual violence, as it was well known that Dolce and Gabbana had a business relationship.
The Advertising Standards Authority considered that most readers of the national newspapers in which the ad was placed would realise it was promoting the mobile phone.
The ad watchdog also considered that most readers were likely to understand the relationship between the image of a mobile phone that, when viewed at an angle, resembled a razor, and the product name RAZR.
In conclusion, because the image was highly stylised, the ad was unlikely to cause serious or widespread offence to most readers, and that the image was unlikely to be seen to condone knife-related violence or to glamorise sexual violence.
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