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THE commercials are meant to be funny, says Swensen's restaurant.
But some viewers say they promote the wrong values.
Launched this month on free-to-air TV and the Internet, there are six advertisements centred on the tagline 'I'm so going to Swensen's'.
In one advertisement, a woman shows her husband how she has her daughters under her thumb as they sit and roll over on command.
He goes 'Wow' and she says: 'I'm so going to Swensen's'.
The last frame of the ad, called Steady Mum, shows the girls balancing a pebble on their noses while she says 'Hold it'.
Tax consultant Listryarinie Ongko, 29, said: 'I don't like the ad at all. Why do they have to liken the girls to dogs to display obedience?
'It doesn't portray a healthy family relationship. It doesn't reflect well on the restaurant either.'
SMART OR CUNNING?
Another ad that some viewers have objected to is called Smart Kid, where a boy is shown changing his test grade from F to A+, then saying the 'I'm so going to Swensen's' tagline.
Housewife Pauline Giam, 50, who has four children, said: 'It projects the wrong values, that it's okay for kids to alter results just to get what they want.'
Mr Charles Goh, 40, an occupational health and safety manager, said: 'The Smart Kid deserves to be punished - is Swensen's encouraging lying?
'The Steady Mum is even worse. The mum thinks she deserves something great by being able to train the kids to be brainless animals.'
A Swensen's spokesman told The New Paper: 'As a family restaurant, Swensen's is committed to enriching the family dining experience with warmth and fun.'
The spokesman said the commercials were launched 'in the cheerful spirit of engaging families' and were 'laced with light-hearted and mildly exaggerated humour, to gently nudge our valued customers that it will always be a treat to dine with us'.
The company had shown the commercials to a sample group and received positive feedback, with most commenting that the approach used is clever, witty and humorous, said the spokesman.
Mrs Joanna Chong, 38, a housewife with three children, had no issue with the Steady Mum ad.
She said: 'It's tongue in cheek. In some sense, you do train kids like you would pets.
'Swensen's has just pushed it to the comic level. Advertisers push the boundaries to make people remember.'
As for the Smart Kid ad, lawyer Melvyn Lim, 33, said: 'I think there is a risk that kids will follow (it), but given that it's all done in good humour, I believe parents can mitigate the potential harm.'
GUIDELINES SAY...
Does it go against the Singapore Code of Advertising Practice, which stipulates that children and young people should not be shown 'behaving in a way that is culturally, socially or morally unacceptable'?
Associate Professor Eleanor Wong, who chairs the Advertising Standards Association of Singapore, said the Smart Kid clip is one that could draw mixed reactions.
She said: 'Looking at the whole series of clips, it seems that the advertiser is aiming for some humour in the treatment.
'However, since humour is notoriously subjective, it is possible that some advertisements miss the mark and end up sending the wrong impression to most people.'
This article was first published in The New Paper on July 10, 2008.
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