Activision Blizzard really thought they had a winner with their latest Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 marketing campaign. The concept was simple enough: people get so hooked on the game that random “replacers” have to step in and do their jobs. Cute idea, until it wasn’t.
The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority just banned one of these commercials, and honestly, it’s not hard to see why. The ad featured fake airport security officers (because the real ones were busy gaming, naturally) conducting what can only be described as an uncomfortable “random selection” scenario. A male passenger gets told he’s about to be “manhandled” and needs to strip down to “everything but the shoes” while a female officer snaps on gloves and mentions something about a “puppet show.”
Yeah. That’s the joke they went with.
When Gaming Marketing Goes Too Far
Nine viewers filed complaints saying the ad trivialised sexual violence. Activision’s defense was predictable: it was targeted at adults who can handle “irreverent or exaggerated humour,” the scenario was deliberately implausible, and Clearcast had already approved it with timing restrictions to keep it away from kids.
The company insisted they weren’t sexualising security searches at all. According to them, the humour was about discomfort, not sex. Even if viewers picked up on innuendo, they argued there wasn’t any explicit content or objectifying imagery.
But here’s the thing about Technology and advertising in 2025: you can’t just hide behind “it’s parody” when the joke relies on implied non-consensual penetration. The ASA wasn’t buying it either.
The Regulator’s Take
The watchdog acknowledged that nothing explicitly sexual appeared on screen and the man stayed clothed throughout. That didn’t save the ad though. The ASA concluded that the entire premise generated humour from “the humiliation and implied threat of painful, non-consensual penetration.” Their ruling was straightforward: the commercial trivialised sexual violence, making it both irresponsible and offensive.
Activision can’t run the ad again in its current form. And honestly, it probably shouldn’t have run in the first place.
Two other viewers also complained about a separate scene showing replacement officers winking at each other while handling prescription medication, questioning whether it encouraged drug use. Because why stop at one controversy when you can bundle them together?
A Pattern Worth Noting
This isn’t Activision’s first rodeo with the ASA. Back in 2012, a Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 commercial got a daytime ban for showing armed men firing at a lorry. The violence and destruction were deemed inappropriate for young audiences.
The gaming industry’s relationship with advertising standards has always been rocky. These are M-rated games designed for adults, but the marketing often pushes boundaries in ways that feel less “edgy” and more “did anyone in the room think this through?”
What’s particularly frustrating is that the Call of Duty franchise doesn’t need shock value to sell copies. These games move millions of units based on brand recognition alone. The airport security bit wasn’t clever marketing. It was lazy writing that confused discomfort with comedy.
The broader entertainment landscape is full of examples where companies mistake offensive for funny, then act surprised when regulators or consumers push back. Disney once argued a severed figure in their ad was clearly a robot, not a human. Coinbase got dinged for trivialising cryptocurrency investment risks. The line between attention-grabbing and tone-deaf keeps getting tested.
Maybe the real question isn’t whether adults can handle irreverent humour, but whether a joke about invasive searches and non-consensual touching was ever funny to begin with.
