'Motherbuffer' gripe stopped in its tracks

A complaint about latent vulgarity in a TV ad featuring a train and using the word "motherbuffer" has hit the buffers.

Three consumers went to the advertising standards watchdog about an MWeb commercial featuring a superhero racing to the rescue of a damsel in distress, only to be thwarted as the screen buffers.

MWeb was advertising its highspeed fibre network by illustrating the slow speed of lower-tech alternatives - summed up in the damsel's one-word exclamation as the train approaches: "Motherbuffer!"

Pieter Pretorius, Irma Erasmus and Andrew Kaye complained to the Advertising Standards Authority that the expression was "an attempt to hide vulgar language" and was being emulated by children.

They also said the scene showing a woman tied to a railway track was "unsuitable for children".

MWeb told the ASA buffering was one of internet users' main bugbears, saying the advertisement "makes reference to these concerns in a playful manner".

It added: "Only people familiar with the well-known expletive would understand the reference, meaning that uninformed children remain unharmed by the term 'motherbuffer'."

The ASA agreed, saying the word would not be interpreted by the "hypothetical reasonable adult as anything but a tongue-in-cheek reference to 'motherf***er'."

As far as the damsel in distress was concerned, "the mood and setting ... is no different to superhero cartoons and is not violent, frightening or aggressive to an extent that children are likely to be harmed".

Source: The Times