Provocative organ donation ad banned for insensitivity and ‘making light’ of Jesus’ crucifixion
A provocative ad campaign which features Jesus dying on the cross to promote organ donation has been overruled by the advertising watchdog.
The controversial social advertisement, which featured scenes where soldiers take “selfies” with Jesus while nailed to the cross, was ultimately banned for its “demeaning take” on Christianity, inappropriate humour and “inadequate consideration” given to “how seriously some Australians take their religion”.
Numerous complaints were sent to Ad Standards with the ad being labelled as “extremely offensive” and “disparaging, discrimatory [sic] and denigrates the death of Christ to the level of gutter humour”.
Why not test the ad and provide evidence on how acceptable it is to Christians and non-Christians? I think it’s a great message.
The crazies won.
Made me laugh and then I went to the organ doner site and signed up so I’m obviously the target audience. Clever work doing something to be banned so it brought my attention to it. Mission accomplished! Bravo!
Typo! Obviously meant to ‘donor’, we’re not talking kebabs.
What a croc. Friggin nanny state
I’m not at all religious…and am not offended at the Life of Brian, but this is just a shocker. Too long, boring, includes administration, not funny and makes light of a pretty serious decision…for a set of serious circumstances. Sometimes creatives need a reality check…and clients need to take responsibility for poor judgement. This has not been banned based on religious insensitivity…its just sh#te!
Yes its disgusting. I would much prefer to watch “Life of Brian” to get some real content.
So baldy done, so insulting. If they really wanted to involve Jesus (such a cheap tactic anyways) to get the message across…
Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, he comes out of the tomb…
Jesus: ‘mate, you didn’t tick the donate organs box’ – it goes from there.
A bit akward in execution, but I enjoyed the humour and Australian accents. I signed up, so it worked for me.
Its hard to believe in god when things are going great guns and life’s good.
But when your on your death bed, and thinking about the possibilities of life after death, its hard ‘NOT’ to believe that god exists, and thats why I think this ‘turd’ of a piece of an execution wont work.
Good luck, youll need it.
Yes lets respect the culture of everyone. Its important.
Unless you are religious.
What a hypocritical culture we have.
Too soon?
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
“The closer to death you are, the more you want to believe in life after death and therefore a god”
The strength of a belief has no effect on the how true it is.
“It’s not funny, It’s making fun of a very serious situation”
Nah, it’s pretty funny. Precisely because it’s making light of a situation people take very seriously.
Well done Ad Standsrds Board. Thank you for giving this excellent and another run anf some more earned media. Appreciate your efforts.
Not funny & disrepectful to the Christian religion.
I cant believe Jeebus won this round!!!!
There is no way this adv. was created without knowing it will offend. I can only assume the agency and client wanted to offend so that they could get the free media that would come from social outrage.
It is a tacky adv. that will just dd to our hate mill click-bait media culture. Now if they really wanted to get some media traction, replace Jesus with Mohammad during the Haj or a Jew getting into a rail waggon; it is hanukkah! The coverage would be totes amze!
Maybe some farmers chatting to Budhha before his transcendence . . . it is not like he will be coming back into the same body. Better still, that Hindu god, Ganasha! After all he was the original organ donner!! Jesus is just low hanging fruit.
I always wonder about that approach “We deliberately tried to offend people because that gets attention.” Which invites the obvious reply “So you are incapable of getting attention without being offensive. How then is an add professional any different from a teenage dropkick?”
To all those who are negative about the ad, I just hope you are never in need of a organ donation when yours fail. Would you knock back a life saving operation if the donation is a result of the ad? Any ad be it good or bad to bring attention to such a vital need is essential.
Organ donation is a serious business, and a profoundly kind and spiritual human action. Christianity, whether one is a believer or not, is the foundation religion of our western society, and is practiced buy millions of individuals world wide.
When the meat eaters promoted Aussie lamb, utilising the characterisation of various deities and religious figures, there was an outcry, yet here the use of a characterisation of Christ, in what turned out to be a mediocre production of (so called) comedy, there are those who are willing to sing its praises.
I have absolutely no organised religious affiliation, yet I am very pleased to see this rather pathetic attempt at so called humour go.