Jeremy Clarkson's 'banned Hawkstone advert' was rejected for exact same rule four years ago
Jeremy Clarkson has revealed that the new advert for his beer brand Hawkstone was banned this week, however, many will be feeling Déjà vu.
This is because Clarkson, and his Hawkstone Lager brand, had an advert rejected for breaching the exact same rule in basically the exact same way four years ago.
If you had missed it, Clarkson’s home-brewed beer brand Hawkstone announced that their latest advert had been rejected by regulators.
Whilst multiple outlets have reported that this was the Advertising Standards Authority who banned it, the ASA have denied this as they deal with complaints about already aired adverts, not unaired ones.
Advert
The advert, which Clarkson claimed was his ‘most expensive advert yet’ looking to ‘save the British pub’, sees a farmer’s choir singing about how good Hawkstone lager is.
More specifically, the farmers repeatedly sing ‘f*ck me it’s good’ with Clarkson ending by saying ‘it’s f*cking good’.
Unsurprisingly, the Clarkson's Farm host then revealed that it had been prevented from airing due to the language used.
Posting statements about the ‘fun police’, it should not have come as a shock to Clarkson – because he tried to get an advert aired in December of 2021 which was rejected for the exact same reason.
Clarkson took to X, then known as Twitter, to announce that he had an ‘apparently offensive’ advert banned for saying ‘f*ck me it’s good’. That, also, was barred from airing by regulators, according to Clarkson.
Whilst it is possible that he simply thought that he could get away with it this time, it is undoubtedly peculiar that he has tried to get an advert aired with even more swearing of the exact same kind four years later.
Regardless, the advert has managed to grab headlines after Clarkson announced its ban.
The TV presenter and farmer released a statement following the news, saying: “I’ve made my biggest, most heartfelt, and frankly, most expensive advert ever, and it’s been banned.”
He went on to say that ‘fun police’ in ‘beige offices’ had decided that the public could not be trusted to watch it.
He finally added: “It’s been kicked off the telly, silenced on the radio, and barred from the cinema. Apparently, it’s ‘not compliant’. With what, I have no idea. Common sense?”
A blog on Clearcast, the company that clears ads before they air on TV in the UK, suggests that their role is to ‘help get ads on air, and stay there’ and that is why they will prevent searing in adverts.
This is to avoid ‘potential offence of viewers watching’.
Whilst they will work with adverts where it’s aimed at specific audiences or is particularly relevant, one imagines that a chorus of farmers belting ‘f*ck’ at the top of their lungs was a step too far.
LADbible has contacted Clearcast and Radiocentre, the UK’s pre-air regulators for TV and Radio, for comment.
Topics: Jeremy Clarkson, Clarkson's Farm, TV and Film, TV, Celebrity
Michael Slavin