Four people complained about an ad in the Evening Standard for the brewer's Spitfire beer, which was in the style of a crossword clue and read "__SS – German lager (4)".
The complainants said the use of the insignia of the SS, units of which were responsible for war crimes and atrocities during World War II, was deeply offensive.
Shepherd Neame conceded that the humour behind using the dreaded SS insignia was edgy, but argued that the insignia was the butt of a joke as part of its long-running campaign evoking the British World War II spirit at the expense of the Germans, similar to that used in the TV programmes 'Allo Allo' and 'Dad's Army'. It said it had no plans to repeat the ad.
Despite attracting a number of complaints over the eight years of the 'Bottle of Britain' campaign, the Spitfire ads have never been found to be in breach of the advertising standards code.
The Advertising Standards Authority concluded that the ad was unlikely to cause serious or widespread offence to Evening Standard readers.
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