ASA rule on transport government body

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has ruled that Transport for London t/a TFL published an advertisement that perpetuated negative racial stereotypes.

Transport for London t/a TFL published a paid-for Facebook ad featuring a video of a black teenage boy on a bus who turns around and states to the passenger behind him, “Am I not good enough for you or something? Why you not chatting to me?”. This shot was followed by one of a white teenage boy with overlaid text that stated, “Would you know how to defuse incidents of hate crime, sexual offences and harassment?”. 

The advertisement then featured the left hand of a white teenage girl touching her right arm. The black teenage boy then said to her, “I said you look good and you don’t wanna go out with me?”, before moving to the girl’s face, where she looked uncomfortable before looking out of a window. The text on the screen changed to “Watch the full film to learn how to act like a friend”. The black teenage boy said, “Can you hear me? Look at me when I’m talking to you”. The caption of the Facebook ad was: “To defuse incidents of hate crime, sexual offences and harassment, act like a friend. Watch the full film to learn how” and included a “learn more” button with a link to a YouTube video.

Transport for London emphasised their approach to casting to ensure that they were representative of the diverse population of London, and that the ad was part of three short social media ads cut-down from their two-minute “act like a friend” film. The two other cut-downs featured a white male committing a hate crime against a black woman and a white male committing a hate crime against another white male respectively. The full film showed two males perpetrating an incident of sexual harassment, one white and one black, with both displaying offensive behaviour.

ASA upheld the complaint, although it was unlikely for consumers to see the ad in isolation of the other two, as it required care to be taken to avoid causing offence on the ground of protected characteristics. ASA stated that even if consumers were aware of the wider campaign, seeing the advertisement in isolation would not necessarily prevent the ad from causing harm or offence.