Sony has been shrouded in controversy for a while now. What with its depiction of a combat in the Church of Manchester in its hit Resistance: Fall of Man videogame. Now, the company is caught in yet another soup as it has been forced to pull one of its PS3 ads from Internet in the UK.
Sony has been warned by the Advertising Standards Authority to remove the PS3 ad that has been termed as controversial as it depicts some form of “potential” violence.
The new PS commercial that has been shown on the Yahoo UK site, features a bald man named Kovac sitting in a bathtub. Well, this ad hasn’t been banned for nudity, but on the contrary, something much worse as seen through the ASA’s eyes.
The ad continues showing Kovac holding not only a knife but also a gun. Then, the following text is displayed: “You on my side? Listen up I’ve killed for less. The music plays Puccini in my head.”
Kovac is then shown pointing the gun at the bathroom roof and the following text appears: “Kovac, mercenary of misunderstood?” And, this is then followed by the “This is Living” PlayStation 3 slogan.
This ad is quite a cryptic one. But, according to the ASA, the ad is totally unacceptable. They have even forced Sony to remove this ad because of the ‘potential’ violence that it depicts.
TBWA, the makers of this ad tried to defend their creation by stating that the ad would was only meant to be seen by an adult audience. Yahoo further backed their story by saying that the ad would only be seen by registered users who were obviously above the age of 18 years.
But, the ASA was not persuaded by Yahoo or by the creators of the PS3 commercial. Sony hasn’t commented as yet.
The ASA stated that the main problem with the ad was that: “there was an underlying tone of violence in the ad and we were concerned that the images of Kovac holding the knife and the gun, in conjunction with the text, ‘You on my side? Listen up I’ve killed for less…” could be seen to glamorize violence or anti-social behavior.”
Sony should take extra care when coming up with their next commercial.