A press ad for Dawn French’s new UK tour titled ‘Dawn French is a huge twat’ has been cleared by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) after several members of the public challenged whether the ad was likely to cause serious or widespread offence.
While the tour’s management company Phil McIntyre Live said it was “regrettable” that the ad had caused some upset, it also acknowledged that the title of the show was humorous, and aimed any offence at Dawn French herself.
“While the show itself was funny it also had a life-affirming message,” Phil McIntyre Live told the ASA.
The entertainment company also said that it would not advertise the tour in media or locations that wished to censor the tour name as “the title of the show was important”. According to Phil McIntyre Live, the term in question was one that was used by many people, including Dawn French, in their everyday lives.
The advertising authority sided with the company’s view, assessing that the ad seen in The Sunday Times would not be deemed as offensive by the newspaper’s readers.
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“We considered that most readers would likely be aware of who Dawn French was and her style of comedy, and that the use of the word would be understood by readers to be self-deprecating and tongue in cheek, and it was not, for example, used in a sexual context,” the ad authority added.
“We therefore concluded that whilst some readers may have found the ad distasteful, it was unlikely to cause serious or widespread offence to its audience, and concluded that it did not breach the [Committee of Advertising Practise] Code.”
