Call of Duty suffers setback as costly ban is imposed

A Call of Duty advertisement has been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for trivialising sexual violence, following complaints about its depiction of an invasive airport security search.

The video-on-demand and YouTube ad for Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, seen in November, opened with an airport security scene where a male officer told a man: "You’ve been randomly selected to be manhandled – face the wall." He then instructed the man: "I’m gonna need you to remove your clothes, everything but the shoes," before a female officer donned gloves. A final scene showed the male officer placing a hand-held metal detector in the man’s mouth, stating: "Bite down on this, she’s going in dry."

Nine complaints were lodged with the ASA, arguing the advertisement was irresponsible and offensive. Activision Blizzard UK Ltd, trading as Call of Duty, defended the ad by stating it was for an 18-rated game, targeting adult audiences with a "higher tolerance for irreverent or exaggerated humour." The company added that the ad had been approved by ad clearance agency Clearcast with an ‘ex-kids’ timing restriction, ensuring it was not broadcast during or around children’s programming.

The ASA determined the ad depicted a non-consensual, invasive search of a man passing through airport security. They noted a female officer's line, "Time for the puppet show," which they considered would be understood as a reference to an intrusive body cavity search, highlighting the officer's treatment of the search as a source of entertainment.

A scene from the now banned advertPA/ASA

While acknowledging the ad's intent to be humorous through exaggeration and its departure from genuine airport security screening, the ASA concluded that "the humour in the ad was generated by the humiliation and implied threat of painful, non-consensual penetration of the man, an act associated with sexual violence." They added that the officers’ "confident and joking demeanour presented this in a humorous manner."

"Because the ad alluded to non-consensual penetration, and framed it as an entertaining scenario, we considered that the ad trivialised sexual violence and was therefore irresponsible and offensive," the ASA stated. Consequently, the advertisement must not appear again in its current form. Activision Blizzard UK Ltd was instructed to ensure future ads are socially responsible and do not cause serious offence by trivialising sexual violence.