Swipe It or Skip It: The Ricky Gervais “Banned Ad” Play

Every few months, a brand (or a celebrity pretending to be a brand), tries to resuscitate the oldest trick on the attention-economy playbook: 

“They banned my ad!” 

This sets up the perfect recipe for a breeding ground of:

• Rallying from supporters

• Pushback from critics

• Screenshots that go viral

Except… the ban never happened. 

Earlier this month, Ricky Gervais posted a series of vodka ads and claimed they’d been “banned from the Tube”. 

Transport London, meanwhile, totally minding its own business, was completely blindsided by all the manufactured rage and after going, “wait, what?” added, “Yeah those ads were never even submitted to us.” 

Which brings me to this week’s Swipe It or Skip It: Is the fake ban strategy a swipeable marketing tactic, or a reputation-rotting skip?

What Actually Happened (And Why It Blew Up)

Gervais: “These ads were banned!”

The internet hivemind: “Censorship! Institutions are out of control! These moral pearl-clutchers are ruining comedy! 

Transport London: We literally never saw these. 

As humans, we LOVE stories with real weight behind them; conflicts with something on the line. News like this ignites a firestorm of controversy. But just as fire spreads hot and fast, it also scorches everything in its path. 

And in this path, the thing it scorched was user trust. 

Nothing tanks a brand faster than making supporters feel used. 

BUT Gervais can get away with it because he’s a comedian. His whole brand is provocation. 

When a celebrity pulls a stunt like this, the public subconsciously views it as part of their persona. When a brand does it, it’s viewed as a breach of trust.

Gervais behaved like a brand launching a campaign:

• He released polished creative

• He framed it as a “banned” ad series

• He situated himself as the underdog vs. an institution

He triggers overall public annoyance and aggravation at censorship. Except unlike an actual brand, his personal posts aren’t bound by things like:

• Ad regulations

• Review boards

• Legal accountability

• Long-term consumer trust

He gets to savor the virality without the consequences. A brand making a claim that “this was banned” faces regulatory scrutiny and risks their reputation. A celebrity doesn’t, because their whole business model is attention, not compliance. 

Audiences Treat Celebrities Differently

Whenever a celebrity stirs up controversy, fans rush to defend them and critics argue about them, which keeps them in the spotlight. A brand doing the same thing gets countless headlines about misinformation, a stain on their reputation and potential regulatory consequences. 

The Verdict: Skip It – Hard.

There are boundary-pushing ad ideas worth stealing, but this isn’t one of them. Once your audience realizes you manufactured outrage to make them care, you’ve just set foot in an ethics landmine. 

And what’s even more sad, is that a lot of marketers will look at this and go: 

WOW. The engagement is off the charts!

That controversy is getting clicks like CRAZY

LOOK at all the screenshots! 

But when you manufacture outrage, you’re also creating a hotbed of distrust, and distrust compounds. People don’t forget easily. 

Now here’s what you can take away from all this…

This isn’t a black-and-white Swipe It or Skip It, because there are some gold nuggets worth taking away from this whole fiasco, and you’ll definitely want to swipe them: 

The Plot Twist

People love when something unexpected happens. Use it, but use it truthfully. 

The Genuine Underdog

Real vulnerability beats an invented villain any day. 

Humor and Tension Without the Deception

You can still push boundaries without dipping a toe into fiction. 

Transparency as the Difference

Most brands hide everything, but being the one that doesn’t is what people notice. 

The “fake ban” move works once. Maybe twice. But it costs you the only currency you have that compounds:  

Your reputation. 

So if you’re tempted to copy the stunt, by all means, swipe the storytelling, swipe the tension and swipe the boldness – just skip the lie.