The adverts you love to hate

Published on Tuesday 27 March 2007 02:51

Commercials showing sex, religion or apparent cruelty to animals among those drawing most complaints

THEY have shocked and outraged, provoked and offended, all in the name of advertising.

And the definitive all-time list of the most complained-about television adverts has something to upset everyone.

Produced by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) watchdog, the list includes some iconic recent ads, such as the "dead hamster" promoting Levi's jeans and an image of the model Sophie Dahl spread naked across a billboard to advertise perfume.

And ad makers, it seems, are sailing ever closer to the wind, with two current commercials already among the most complained-about in advertising history. The new offenders are the Department of Health's anti-smoking adverts, which depict smokers being hooked through the jaw and yanked back to their nicotine habit, and Cadbury's Trident gum, in which a West Indian poet exhorts the UK to try "mastication for the nation".

The anti-smoking commercials have already racked up nearly 800 complaints about the graphic imagery, making them the sixth most complained-about adverts ever. The Trident gum promotion has received just under 520 complaints and is in joint 11th place.

ASA officials are this week due to issue a ruling on whether complaints about the Trident gum commercial are justified. Some viewers were upset at what they saw as racial typecasting of the lead character - an entertainer in a nightclub - while others pointed out Trident was the name used for the Metropolitan Police's initiative to curb black gun crime in London.

Branding expert Neale Gilhooley, from Evolution Design in Edinburgh, criticised the Trident commercial as "a very poor introduction of a brand". He said: "It feels like an advert devised by a London agency, and people outside the big cities are going to struggle to understand that accent. I don't really understand how a comedian in a club is going to sell me bubble gum."

Adverts typically receive only one or two complaints but sex, religion or apparent cruelty to animals are sufficient to earn commercials a place near the top of any league table of objections, with hundreds of viewers registering their unhappiness.

Annoying viewers appears a speciality for chewing-gum manufacturers, with Wrigley's Xcite gum from 2003, which depicted a man regurgitating a dog, also making the shortlist. Jean maker Levi's also has a place in advertising infamy for poking fun at animals in its commercials. Its 1998 commercial, which depicted a hamster apparently dying of boredom after its wheel was taken away, reportedly drove some young viewers to tears and earned it joint 11th place.

Pot Noodle and Club 18-30 holidays both racked up huge numbers of complaints. And even the genteel world of Mr Kipling's mince pies provoked an outcry in 2004 when a commercial showed a woman called Mary actually giving birth in a church hall during a nativity play.

A 1995 leaflet for National Condom Week which depicted the Pope in a hard hat and the words "The Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt always wear a condom" remains the second most complained-about advert, with 1,192 people protesting. It is followed by another advert involving sex - nearly 1,000 people complained about a poster for which the model Sophie Dahl posed naked on a fur rug in a campaign for Opium perfume.

Mark Banham, from the marketing website Brand Republic, said: "People are much more media-savvy these days and they are more aware of their right to complain.

"The fact you can complain online or just by picking up the phone makes the process easier, and that's no bad thing."

Public disgust

• THE commercial that has received most complaints is the 2005 TV promotion for the KFC Zinger Crunch Salad. It drew 1,671 complaints, most from viewers who felt the fact it showed call centre workers singing with their mouths full would encourage bad manners in children. However, watchdogs cleared it.

• SIXTEEN years after it was launched, Benetton's 1991 poster of a newborn baby remains controversial. The image was part of a wave of stark reportage-type pictures used by the company. However, the ASA decided the poster was a bad reflection on the advertising industry and ordered Benetton not to repeat the tactic.