The ad, created by Bartle Bogle Hegarty, drew 293 complaints from viewers who believed it was offensive to people suffering from allergies because it appeared to make light of a potentially fatal condition. It had already been withdrawn by Barclays, regardless of the outcome.
The ad, which had a restriction to keep it away from programmes made specifically for children, showed the man jumping up in pain and running towards a nearby lake with his face visibly swollen.
The man is shown trying to splash his face as he leans over the jetty but falls into the water, emerging at the edge of the lake covered in weeds and mud and howling in pain.
He then staggers towards a restaurant where people start to scream. The police arrive and shoot the man with a dart in his rear, placing his foot on him as another policeman photographs the scene.
The voiceover said: "Statistically, you're more likely to be arrested than change your bank account."
Many of the viewers, 91 in total, said they felt personal stress after seeing the ad because they had known people, or had themselves, suffered from allergies or anaphylaxis, with 23 complainants saying they knew people who had nearly died or had died from an adverse reaction to a sting, as portrayed in the ad.
Seven viewers said that their children were scared by the images of the man with the swollen face emerging from the lake or of the bee or wasp in the can. Twelve people thought that the ad was too horrific to be shown on TV at all or without a further restriction.
The Advertising Standards Authority agreed that the ad breached the code because of the significant number of viewers, who had experienced first-hand the seriousness of an acute reaction and were clearly distressed by seeing the ad.
The ASA said that it did not think the ad was reminiscent of these concerns and accepted that by the time the policeman tranquilised and captured the man he had clearly been dramatised as a monster of some kind.
Barclays decided not to run the ad again regardless of the outcome of the ASA investigation, however the Broadcasting Advertising Clearance Centre said that it had cleared the ad in good faith with no intention to offend and had even reviewed seven separate versions of the pre-production script.
The BACC said it considered that the final film was "whimsical in the treatment of a bee sting", "farcical in tone" and generally "light-hearted in its approach".
If you have an opinion on this or any other issue raised on Brand Republic, join the debate in the .