Twerking businessman tops list of television adverts complaints

Adverts featuring a twerking businessman in high heels, a lesbian kissing scene and a mother telling her son about his dead father’s favourite McDonald’s burger have angered viewers the most so far this year.

The Moneysupermarket.com ‘dance-off’ ads featuring businessman Dave wearing denim cut-offs and heels attracted the most complaints – 455 – of any campaign in any medium, with viewers objecting that it was offensive and overtly sexual, possibly homophobic and having the potential to encourage hate crimes.

Match.com’s ad showing a woman removing her female’s partner’s top and kissing her drew the second highest number of complaints between January and June at 293.

However, the volume of complaints did not lead to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) banning the ads, ruling neither was likely to cause serious offence.

McDonald’s swiftly pulled its poorly received campaign featuring a mother helping her son grieve for his father while sitting in one of the chain’s restaurants, but not before viewers lodged 255 complaints that it exploited child bereavement to sell fast food.

The ASA later decided an investigation was not needed.

The three ads helped television campaigns to draw a total of 5,172 complaints, the most of any medium in the first half of this year.

Online ads were a close second with 4,062 complaints, although more individual online ads drew complaints than in any other medium.

The new figures show that men lodged 7,729 complaints compared with 5,031 by women.