Bed company causes a stink with TV ad about "shipping the bed"

A CASTLEFORD bed company has been censured by the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) for running TV adverts that younger children may have confused the word “ship” with a less child-friendly word.

The advert for Bedworld featured both sales people and customers talking about beds and mattresses which were available with free shipping.

The script, which generated 10 complaints, included lines such as “I’ve just shipped this mattress” and “we’ve just shipped this bed…and it felt great”.

The ASA didn’t uphold the complaints that the ad was offensive because it believed the word “ship” had been substituted in place of a swear word.

However it did uphold the five complaints that the advert had been scheduled inappropriately at times when children may be watching television.

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In its judgement, the ASA said: “We acknowledged that, while the expletive had not been used, the two words did sound similar; we considered that younger viewers were unlikely to register the distinction between the two when spoken in the ad.

“We considered that ‘sh*t’ was likely to be a word that parents may want their children to avoid, that children may already recognise as bad language and that was unsuitable for them.

“For those reasons, we considered a scheduling restriction should have been applied and because that was not the case, we concluded the scheduling of the ad breached the Code.”

Bedworld said it “regretted any distress the ad may have caused a parent or child, and that was not their intention.”

The advert must not be broadcast again without a scheduling restriction.