A TV advertisement from Wrigley’s chewing gum that had a same-sex kiss is the third most complained about advertisement in Australian in 2023.

The TV ad shows two women in a car, eating chewing gum. When Carly Rae Jepsen’s hit Call Me Maybe comes on they start moving in their seats before one moves in for a kiss.

The actual kiss is shown for just a second and is in silhouette, but it led to 126 complaints to the advertising watch dog Ad Standards.

The complaints however were not about the gender of the participants in the kiss. People raised concern about the recipient of the kiss not being given an opportunity to give consent.

“If this had been a male doing this to a female it would have been called out as lacking consent before physical contact and being aggressive or even sexually intimidating.” one complainant said.

“Lesbians also suffer from violence and domestic violence and this advertisement appears to promote aggressive kissing without consent.” thy added.

“The girl looks ecstatic after kissing the other girl as if she has done somethoing wonderful. But, she has really violated the space of another female without asking permission first. This behaviour should not be encouraged by young girls and chewing gum should not be used to promote aggression.”

Lots of people however did complain about a same-sex relationship being seen on screen.

“To many same sex relationships in the media all the time. It needs to be tolerated but should not be advertised as the norm.” one person who contacted Ad Standards said.

“Two women passionately kissing on a TV commercial is not acceptable. People are watching a PG show with their family and do not expect to be confronted with lovemaking on an advertisement.” was another comment.

Mars Wrigley, the company behind the product defended their ad citing the commitment to showing diversity in the promotions. They also suggested those seeing a story of assault and lack of consent were creating their own narrative for the advertisement.

Ad Standards dismissed the complaints finding the ad did not violate any of the standards for advertising.

The other advertisements that raised people’s ire include a billboard in Perth that promoted an Only Fans content creator, a Red Rooster ad, a campaign from Love Honey, and an ad for Diablo IV.

None of the most complained about ads were found to have broken the rules, but the Ad Standards Community Panel upheld complaints about more than 70 ads this year. Another 30 ads were removed or changed by advertisers as soon as Ad Standards made them aware of complaints.

Executive Director Richard Bean said that Ad Standards had received over 3,500 complaints this year and investigated more than 250 ads that raised issues under the advertising industry codes.

“We’ve seen a 25 per cent increase in complaints this year demonstrating the community’s enthusiasm for holding businesses accountable for their ads,” Bean said.

The main issues of concern were sexual appeal, violence, and demonstrating behaviour contrary to community health and safety standards.

“Advertisers need to make sure their ads align with evolving community standards around the use of sexual imagery and violence, with these issues generating more than half of this year’s complaints,” Richard Bean noted.

Graeme Watson 

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