{"id":235970,"date":"2017-11-04T07:59:50","date_gmt":"2017-11-04T05:59:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=235970"},"modified":"2017-11-04T08:00:27","modified_gmt":"2017-11-04T06:00:27","slug":"mtn-ermahgerd-complaint-dismissed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/235970-mtn-ermahgerd-complaint-dismissed.html","title":{"rendered":"MTN Ermahgerd complaint dismissed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa (ASA) has dismissed a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.asasa.org.za\/rulings\/mtn-ermahgerdgirl-mbiribauer-2017-6863f\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>consumer complaint<\/strong><\/a> against MTN\u2019s Ermahgerd TV advertisement.<\/p>\n<p>The advertisement features a young girl who touches a yellow bubble, and various &#8220;Ermahgerd\u201d characters then appear.<\/p>\n<p>One consumer found the advertisement offensive, arguing that it portrays white people as disabled and makes fun of people with disabilities.<\/p>\n<p>MTN disputed the argument that the ad is offensive, explaining that it leverages a trending phenomenon of &#8220;Ermahgerd Girl\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>MTN added that it has no intention of ridiculing any disability of any nature, nor would it perpetuate any negative or hurtful stereotypes of disabilities or people living with disabilities.<\/p>\n<p>The ASA agreed with MTN, saying the complainant appears to have read more into the commercial than what is there.<\/p>\n<p>It accepted MTN\u2019s explanation that the execution of the commercial was based on the trending &#8220;Ermahgerd\u201d phenomenon.<\/p>\n<p>The ASA subsequently dismissed the complaint.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/mXS6cgDDvvo\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Now read:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/235364-mtn-bozza-network-fight.html\">MTN Bozza network fight<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The ASA has dismissed a complaint against MTN\u2019s Ermahgerd ad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":235976,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[47090,35,42],"class_list":["post-235970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cellular","tag-ermahgerd","tag-headline","tag-mtn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235970"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235970"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235970\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":236074,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235970\/revisions\/236074"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}