One of the posters featured a man dressed in a white suit with a ram's head set against the backdrop of a swimming pool, and surrounded by several bikini-clad women whose attention is on him.
A pint of beer along with Young's logo is shown, with the phrase "This is a ram's world". The complainant objected to the ad by saying it implied sexual success and enhanced attractiveness.
In the second ad, the ram is shown dressed in a suit in the setting of a gentleman's club, surrounded by several well-dressed men who are looking and laughing at the ram and what he is saying. The ad features the same words as the other poster with Young's logo superimposed on to the foreground under the tagline.
The complainant objected that the ads depicted the ram as the centre of social attention and in doing so, implied social success.
The brewery hit back by saying that the image of the ram was related to the brewery's symbol, which it had used for more than 150 years and was not intended to be a man or represent its target audience.
In response to the complaints, Young's said that the idea of the "ram" in the depicted social situations was "so preposterous" that the viewer would understand the unreality of the scenarios and that neither image showed the consumption of alcohol nor would lead to sexual or social success.
The Advertising Standards Authority found that even though a man pictured with a ram's head would not be seen as attractive, and therefore not link alcohol with enhanced attractiveness, the strapline "This is a ram's world" emphasised that Young's drinkers were personified by the ram and suggested they were more likely to be the target for seduction.
The company was told to withdraw the posters and adopt an approach in the future that did not link the product with seduction or social success.
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