The advert appeared in a British newspaper March 2014 and was soon after removed ( See Offensive Oscar ad banned ) due to an extremely high volume of complaints. Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) received 5 525 complaints making it the highest number of objections ever received for an advertisement in Britain. The outrage and record breaking complaints was due to the fact that people felt they were being insensitive considering a woman died and making fun of disability.
Watchdog banned the advert as they said it “brought advertising into disrepute” but Paddy Power argued that the advert was not intended to cause offence.
So there you go… Oscar set another record without even trying. Might not be the one a person would set out to receive but it is what it is.
The Daily Mail reported;
- Second most complained was Booking.com’s ‘swearword’ TV ad
- In third was competition by The Sun offering a date with a Page 3 girl
- The Paddy Power ad attracted three times more complaints than the second most complained about ad of 2014.
- Travel website Booking.com’s ad campaign, which used the word ‘booking’ in place of a swear word, received 1,768 complaints.
