The UK’s advertising regulators have pulled Irish bookmaker Paddy Power’s controversial Cheltenham Festival Ladies Day advertisement. It was a decision taken by Clearcast, the firm that originally approved the ad, after members of the public had made a number of complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).
A statement from the company read: “…following a number of complaints over the last few days, it appears that the ad has caused offence and in consultation with broadcasters, it has been decided that the ad should no longer run on their TV or VoD services in its current format. We regret offence that may have been caused.”
Paddy was understandably rather unhappy about all this and not even a complimentary pint of Guinness would calm him down!
“This is especially frustrating given the commercial was already pre-approved by British television advertising clearance body Clearcast, just one week ago, who then considered the humour in the advert, while not to everyone’s taste, fell short of causing offence,” he told the Paddy Power Betting Blog.
Paddy also revealed the company had reached out to UK transgender group, The Beaumont Society, who said it wasn’t inappropriate as “the entire campaign would be a tongue-in-cheek look at the Ladies Day race meeting where these days a large number of cross dresser’s make a day of it”.
Will this stop Paddy in his tracks? Hell no! The cheeky Irish chappy is already getting his next ad in the “We Hear You” campaign ready. The title…CHAVS. The ad has called into question whether this was all just a PR stunt on the part of Paddy and that he was hoping for the controversy so that more would use the site.
