'Sofa King Low' Advert Banned For Alluding To One Particularly Offensive Swear Word (PICTURE)
Sometimes, all a company needs to get people buying its products is a decent pun. Fish and chip shops have been doing it for years: 'Fishcotheque' in London, 'For Cod's Sake' in Cheltenham, 'Just The Plaice' in Swanage.
Northampton furniture store Sofa King trumps the lot of them with their catchphrase, boasting the immortal line: "Where the prices are Sofa King low" on all their adverts. Or, at least, it used to.
Banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) after several complaints by offended members of the public, the play on swear words has been officially blacklisted.
"The ASA noted that the phrase 'Sofa King Low' used the advertiser's company name but considered that it could be interpreted as a derivative of the swear word 'f***', which consumer research had found to be a word so likely to offend that it should not be used in ads at all, even when it was relevant to the name of a product," the ASA statement read. "Because of that, we concluded that the slogan was likely to cause serious or widespread offence."
Serious or widespread offence? Maybe. Giggles from all and sundry? Much more likely.
Of course it's not the first time a slightly inappropriate advert has been kiboshed by the powers that be, as this gallery we've got for you proves pretty definitively.
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Huffington Post UK Alastair Plumb First Posted: 29/02/2012 10:30 Updated: 7/03/2012 11:32