In one of the television ads for WKD, created by Big Communications, two men in a shop looking for WKD are shouted at by a shopkeeper, who jumps out at them from behind some shelves. The men look surprised and leave the shop, while the shopkeeper waves his pricing gun at them, which spews out price stickers, like a real gun.
Another ad features two men finishing bottles of WKD while sitting on a sofa. They realise only one bottle is left so race towards the fridge playfighting. One drops a photoframe, which the other grabs, giving the first man time to reach the fridge.
Big Communications argued that the humour in the first spot was in the style of 'Little Britain', which was less accessible to under 18s and the shopkeeper was eccentric rather than juvenile. The agency said the second ad was meant in a "light-hearted way as a release from every day life".
However, the Advertising Standards Authority said: "We considered that the humour was juvenile, that both ads employed themes that are either associated with youth culture or likely to appeal strongly to adolescents."
A range of Diageo's Smirnoff Ice ads, created by Bartle Bogle Hegarty, featuring Uri, a chilled-out Eastern European loyal to Smirnoff Ice, have also been banned. BBH lost the Smirnoff Ice account to JWT last month.
One of the ads shows Uri giving viewers a tour of his Arctic wilderness and then going on to watch a football match on his flat-screen TV hanging on the wall, listening to his stereo then opening his fridge. He later steps out in the snow and drinks a Smirnoff Ice. The second ad shows Uri and his friend Gorb on a chatshow talking about his ghetto blaster and mobile phone, which texts him when his Smirnoff Ice is cold enough.
The ASA said: "More than 92,000 under 18-year-olds viewed the ad. We considered that the rules were for the content of the ads and that targeting the ads so that under 18s made up a low percentage of the audience did not mean the code did not apply."
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