The campaign for Easynet's business broadband service showed bosses punching their employees for wasting company money.
One of the advertisements, which appeared in the Evening Standard, showed one man being punched in the face by another man with the stark warning: "When your MD finds out you're spending up to 85% too much on your internet connection." A second ad read: "When your employees discover that their internet connection could be 140 times faster", and was accompanied by an image of a woman punching a man in the face.
A total of 15 complaints were received from the public, objecting to the violence of the images.
While the advertisers argued that the images were humorous and surreal, the Advertising Standards Authority rejected this argument. Easynet also tried to defend the campaign by saying that focus groups had not believed that the ads condoned violence, while publishers who ran the ads claimed that their readers would find them funny.
"It has never been the company's intention to subvert the ASA's code or deliberately cause offence to the general public and the campaign was tested via focus group research prior to release," the company said in a statement.
The ASA, however, ruled that the ads would not generally be seen as humorous, but could cause serious or widespread offence, and that they condoned violence. It has asked the advertiser not to repeat the ads.
The company also uses the image on its corporate website.
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