Britain’s Advertising Standards Authority banned two posters from London’s Young & Co. for linking alcohol to social success and seduction.
The first ad for Young’s Bitter showed a man in a white suit with a ram’s head. He was by a swimming pool with several women in bikinis, whose attention was focused on the ram. A second ad depicted the ram is in a gentleman’s club surrounded by well-dressed men whose attention is also focused on the ram.
The men were laughing at what the ram was saying. Both ads also featured the head of a pint with the phrase “This is a ram’s world.”
A member of the public complained that the ads depicted the ram as the center of social attention and, therefore, implied social and sexual success and enhanced attractiveness.
Although Young’s has withdrawn the ads it denied implying drinking its beer led to sexual or social success. A spokesman said the ram in the ads related to one which had appeared on the brewery’s logo for more than 150 years.
He said the idea of a ram being in the social situations shown in the posters was so preposterous that people would understand it was not real.
“These advertisements were introduced as part of a light-hearted campaign in 2004, well before the rules on the advertising of alcohol were tightened,” said Michael Hardman. “”They were repeated last year but we had already taken the decision not to run them again when our case went before the ASA.”
