Offensive, Banned and Rejected Ads

This ad from Dolce & Gabbana was highly criticized for insinuating gang-rape. (Link)



“Does my bum look big in this?” Banned advertisement for Courage beer by maker Wills and Young. (Link)



Ad for an Irish TV show on the TG4 network.


Barnardo's: There are no silver spoons for children born into poverty. (Link)
This advertisement for Durex performa condoms featured inflated condoms arranged to form the words "roger more". EasyJet suffered complaints objected that the advertisement was offensive because it trivialized the recent war in Iraq.

Shackleton agency created these controversial ads. (Link)











This campaign from the French anti-smoking organisation Droits des Non Fumeurs compares smoking among teenagers to forced oral sex. The campaign in fact was trying to make an analogy of the submissive nature of these two things. The images showed teenagers kneeling down to suck cancer sticks, like they unwillingly perform oral sex. (Link)


This is probably the most controversial advertisement to ever run in GamePro, and it came straight from Sega's marketing department. Readers pelted the GamePro editors with hate mail and threatened to cancel their subscriptions when this two-page centerfold ran in 1996 promoting the Sega Saturn gaming system. (Link)


This is a very shocking ad campaign for Humans for Animals by advertising agency TBWA Paris. (Link)


This controversial ad had the slogan “the tsunami killed 100 times more people than 9/11. The planet is brutally powerful. Respect it. Preserve it”. According to some sources, the WWF did not commission this ad. South American firm called DDB was attempting to land an account with the animal non-profit. According to the National Enquirer, after the ad was outed by the site AdFreak.com, WWF immediately issued a quick denial of purpose. Calling the ad “offensive and tasteless” The World Wildlife Fund claimed it didn't authorize the ad. “SUMMARILY REJECTED” was what WWF told the creative team behind the print terror concept.

While DDB Brazil apologizes for the ad's creation, they still claim it was approved for publication by the local branch of the WWF. (Link 1 | Link 2)


Slim Fast Spoof Ad. (Link)

This controversial ad for preowned BMW's (which states: “You know you're not the first”) teases us with the idea of sliding into a de-virginized luxury German Automobile.


AshleyMadison.com's superbowl commercial has been rejected by NFL. You may or may not heard of the website before but many married people do have. Ashley Madison offers its matchmaking services to married people looking to have an illicit affair. The Canadian company tried to insert a print ad for its services in the 2009 Super Bowl commercial. The ad shows a sweaty woman in a tiny tank top in a suggestive posture and asking “Who are you doing after the game?” (Link)

The S&M duck.



Barbies manufacturer Mattel sent The Body Shop a cease and desist order after posters featuring Ruby - a self proclaimed Anti-Barbie spokesperson started appearing in American shop windows. This banned advertisement was also forbidden to be hung up in the Hong Kong Mass Transit Railway. The complaints included her “nude and nippless figure” being exposed to the public which offended people in the US and China. (Link)


London Underground banned an ad campaign by bookmaker Paddy Power that features a man who appears to be breastfeeding a baby. The poster, which uses the strapline "Where have all the women gone?", was banned on the grounds that it had the "potential to offend public decency". (Link)