20 Sexy, Violent And Offensive Ads Banned In The UK

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Britain's easy to offend Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) recently deemed Ryanair's flight-attendants-in-their-underwear campaign too offensive for public consumption.

The ASA pulled the plug on the newspaper ad, which featured Ryanair staffers posing under the headline "RED HOT FARES & CREW," after receiving 17 complaints that it was offensive and objectified women.

While the ads seemed mild to us (even the feminist blog Jezebel noted, "meh, I've seen worse"), it's hardly a surprise that the ban-happy ASA axed the campaign.

The ASA is a self-regulatory watchdog that oversees advertising in the Britain. While it looks into 10 to 15 questionable ads a week, it takes only one public complaint for the ASA to ax an ad...  and it has taken full advantage of that power.

The ban-happy ASA has pulled the trigger on everything from ads spouting misinformation to ads featuring excessive cleavage to over-Photoshopped advertorials.

While some praise it for being an equal opportunity censor (it has dropped the hammer on Israeli tourism ads that pretend Palestinian territories don't exist and Palestinian tourism ads that pretend Israel doesn't exist), others complain there's neither rhyme nor reason to its rationale. An ad featuring an underweight model for the Drop Dead fashion website was banned, but an ad for H&M featuring a similarly emaciated model avoided censure.

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The ASA noted that "Although we acknowledged that the women in the ads had consented to appear in the calendar, we considered that the ads were likely to cause widespread offense, when displayed in a national newspaper, and therefore concluded that they breached the [advertising] code."

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This online ad for clothing line Drop Dead was banned in November 2011 after the ASA received one complaint regarding its underweight model. ASA called Drop Dead "socially irresponsible" for portraying the image in which featured the "hollows in her thighs" and highly visible ribs and collar bones.

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This ad for Lynx (the British equivalent of Axe) was banned in November for being "sexually suggestive, indecent, provocative."

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The oversized bottle of Marc Jacobs perfume between 17-year-old Dakota Fanning's legs weren't to the ASA's liking. The ad was banned in November 2011 for sexualizing a child.

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Weeks later, the ASA pulled Hailee Steinfeld's Miu Miu ads from circulation for depicting a child in an unsafe position.

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First the ASA banned this Israeli tourism ad in June 2009 after receiving a complaint that "challenged whether the ad misleadingly implied that East Jerusalem was part of the State of Israel."

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Then the ASA banned an ad for Palestinian tourism in December for showing the entire country of Israel as a part of Palestine.

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The ASA has banned two separate Apple commercials from airing in the UK. In 2004 the Power Mac G5 made unsubstantiated claims of being "the world's fastest personal computer" and in 2008, an iPhone commercial was banned for saying that it could access "all of the internet" even though it couldn't support Flash.

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The ASA banned Rachel Weisz' ad for L'Oréal for being overly Photoshopped and "misleadingly exaggerate[d]."

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Julia Roberts Lancome ad was also banned for excessive Photoshopping.

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The ASA banned an ad for Yves Saint Laurent's perfume Belle D'Opium in February 2011 for simulating drug use. They wrote, "We were concerned that in the context of the ad, Belle [played by French actress Melanie Thierry] running her finger down her inner arm could be seen to simulate the injection of opiates into the body." said the ASA. YSL simulating drug use.

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Apparently Yves Saint Laurent hadn't learned their lesson from this banned ad which received 730 complaints in 2000.

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Beyonce's ad for Heat perfume was banned last May for being too sexy. The ASA deemed that the scintillating ad was unsuitable for 7:30 pm TV.

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In September 2011, the ASA received 100 complaints that this mobile phone ad "mocked and belittled" the Christian faith—98 of those complaints objecting to the Buddy Jesus thumbs up to "miraculous" deals during the Easter season.

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This television commercial for Tesco Sausage, featuring pigs roaming in a field, was banned in September 2011 for being misleading—pigs for Tesco are bred both indoors and outdoors. Tesco responded that the ban was ridiculous considering that the farm featured was Tesco supplier.

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In December 2011, this "Final Destination 5" poster was banned for scaring three children who had seen it on a bus. The ASA “considered the image was likely to catch the attention of children, especially because it was shown on a poster on the Underground, where it was an untargeted medium.”

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This ad for same-day cosmetic surgery was banned in December because it "conveyed the message that breast surgery was a straightforward, risk-free lifestyle decision" for young, impressionable girls. The ASA had received 10 complaints.

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Even though Diesel's "Be Stupid" ad campaign was awarded a Grand Prix Lion in the prestigious Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, the ASA banned the series of ads in May 2011 for being indecent.

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This Killer Heels ad by the Newspaper Marketing Agency, a group set up by major national newspapers including the Times, Daily Telegraph, Guardian, etc.—was banned after the ASA received 81 complaints in 2004. The ad was deemed to be offensive, sexist, and condoning violence.