The length of time this has been dragging on shows just how toothless the ASA is - and what canny marketing, this was.

Did they expect the ads to remain on display? Nope, but by doing the poster campaign, there's been a huge amount of free publicity given by the hacks.

Here is an extract from the first line of the complaint:

"Issue

1. 521 complainants believed the poster was offensive and, therefore, unsuitable for display in public locations, which included near schools and in areas with a high Jewish population..."

?

As they said, that's the real reason the ASA pulled it. You're not allowed to advertise prescription drugs in this country. I'm pretty sure there are other restrictions on drug advertisements anyway, as we just don't see the pharma TV adverts you get in the US.

"Can you imagine, if you just got Hugh Laurie's voice-over on a TV add for a prescription medicine,..."

Well, on the bright side, whatever was wrong there'd be a cast-iron guarantee that it wouldn't be lupus...

Think of the kids? Yes, children must be protected from the evils of knowledge about sex at all costs! Everyone knows that children mustn't know about anything to do with sex because if they do, they will surely explode from the inappropriateness of such knowledge!

WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN???

*ahem*

I agree with the ASA simply on the prescription-medicine aspect. The sex part I have no issue with at all.

The ASA actually DID SOMETHING?

Sheesh!

Even after being totally fleeced by my dentist last week, I've still got more teeth than they have . . . by gum!

tea -> monitor

Last year I heard the director of the ASA being interviewed on Rado 4. The interesting thing about him was that behind his surface talk was an authoritarianism springing from a profound and unacknowleged anxiety about sex. He seemed especially disturbed (i.e. "offended") by other people's freedom in relation to their sexual interests. Remember, we didn't vote for these people, or for the control they have over our lives.

The billboard ads are now illegal in Oz - at least here in bible-belt QLD. The offending three letter word has been covered so they now read "Want longer lasting censored?". I think the general feeling is that if sex lasts longer you get less time to talk about it with your mates down the pub.

However we have seen a few spin-off ads such as "Want longer lasting luggage?".

"Someone in my area summed it up neatly by spraypainting the corner of one of these gigantic billboard ads with the phrase "our kids can read you know"."

In the week where we have the story of the potential 13 year old father I think this is rather irrelevant now - besides with the UK education policies of the last 10 years it is also rather inaccurate!

is surely this stuff has to go via the ASA BEFORE it hits the billboards? Surely they'd have known it was an invalid advert against regulation and so stopped it after? Or can I make a billboard that says 'Gordon's a feckin t**t' and wait for someone to complain (assuming anyone bothers)? I don't really understand the process of the ASA, do they only do anything if there's complaints AFTER the fact?

I do fret over the general state of the male sexual function. Cialis, viagra, you name it, on a dozen spams a day, then these posters: it seems that the whole world has but one, erm, driving concern, and that is the failign erectile function in all men everywhere areound the world. The Yanks sell the stuff to Afghan warlords, it gets flogged on TV in the USA, we had the posters -- all this for something I don't hear many men moaning about (it's never happened to the guy I'm talking to, oh no).

Are chaps totally sure they want this omnipresent advertising, which is advertising thier phsyical underperformance? Does it not raise in every heterosexual woman's mind the clear understanding that men actually really can't get it up and need chemical assistance most of the time? What is this commanding sexual force that isupposedly makes men the big goriila, building, ruling, dominating, in short, Nature's natural leader? Because if it's all driven from a 'force' that needs little pills to keep, er, sustained, then maybe it's not Nature's natural dominator and we can stand chaps down from their claim to be genetic kings of the world.

Works for me.

Isn't that what sex evolved for?

"all this for something I don't hear many men moaning about "

Well, of course not, NO ONE is going to admit they suffer from limp dick.

*shrug*. Seems kind of prudish, but here in the US no company would have even ATTEMPTED this ad.

You don't have ads for prescription meds there? We've got em all over. Actually it's odd, these ads, they're required to have some full list of complications, etc. available in a magazine. So the TV ad will make the med totally sound like the shit, list main possible side effects, they'll say like "See our ad in Mens Golfing Monthly" or whatever (it can be ANY magazine so it's a real odd one sometimes). THAT one is like a full page of fine print with, well I don't know I've never bothered to read one.

There's one REALLY odd medicine TV ad now.. it's like 2 and a half minutes long (most are 30 seconds)... it boils down to "No, our product has not been pulled off the market.. some studies have shown it causes fatal side effects but hey, one or two studies said it doesn't! You really should try it anyway!" It's super classy.