These were the 10 most complained about adverts in Britain last year

These were the 10 most complained about adverts in Britain last year

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These were the 10 most complained about adverts in Britain last year

Evan BartlettFeb 20, 2015 The Advertising Standards Authority received 11,455 complaints about adverts on television, on billboards and in newspapers last year. Here are the 10 most complained about in Britain:

1 Paddy Power - 5 525 complaints Banned

Banned for "trivialising the issues surrounding a murder trial, the death of a woman and disability".

2 Booking com - 1 768 Not banned


3 The Sun - 1 711 Banned

"Book a date with a Page 3 model". ASA decided that the ad was "offensive and irresponsible for presenting women as objects to be won".

4 Sainsbury' s - 823 Not banned


While the ASA said some of the Christmas advert was "in poor taste" it "did not judge the ad to be offensive and in breach of the Code".

5 Save the Children - 614 Not banned


This advert depicting women giving birth without doctors or midwives present was permissible because it was shown after the watershed.

6 Waitrose - 267 Resolved

"Everyone who works at Waitrose owns Waitrose". People complained that some services like cleaning were outsourced by the company. When Waitrose was approached with the complaints it agreed to amend the ad.

7 VIP electronic cigarettes - 199 Banned

While the ASA did not deem the advert to glamorise smoking it did consider it to depict "the products being exhaled in a way that created a strong association with traditional tobacco smoking".

8 TADServices Ltd - 188 Sector investigation

Complaints were received that it "gave a false impression of being an official government site". ASA recommended a sector-wide investigation into so-called "copycat websites".

9 Unilever Flora Buttery - 183 Not banned


While the ASA acknowledged that the advert was suggestive "it did not contain any sexually graphic or distressing scenes".

10 IQ Channels Ltd passport-uk co uk 177 Sector investigation

Complaints were sent to ASA that this website, which offered passport renewal services, "misleadingly implied it was a government site". This was part of the same "copycat websites" sector investigation as number eight - TADServices. More: These are the ten most romantic adverts of all time More: Six adverts that were so misleading they had to be bannedKeep reading...Show less

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