Those Moneysupermarket ads got most complaints in 2016

From Digital Spy

Moneysupermarket's advert featuring the twerking businessmen and crotch-grabbing bodyguard topped the list of the most epically excrutiating complained-about TV adverts in the UK last year.

The Advertising Standards Authority released the top ten rundown by number of complaints - which also included Paddy Power's cat-kicking blind footballers - but ruled that none on the list "crossed the line" from bad taste to offensive.

Hotpants and high-heel clad Dave and his original ad campaign for the British price comparison website-based business - which featured a cameo from Sharon Osbourne - received the most complaints in 2015, but this year Dave was down at no.4 with his solo dance-off against pole-dancing builder Colin.

Gary the dancing bodyguard - played by an original Bronx breakdancer who appeared in the 1984 movie Beat Street - prompted the most complaints with 1,063 disgruntled viewers calling the ASA to brand his moves "distasteful".

Moneysupermarket.com's group dance-off ad - which featured Dave and Colin again - was second with 898 complaints.

Dating website Match.com's commercial which saw two women kissing and undressing was deemed as sexually explicit and received 896 complaints.

Paddy Power's ad featuring blind footballers accidentally kicking a cat was just below, with the ASA ruling that most viewers would find it humorous rather than derogatory towards blind people.

The cheeky and progressive Maltesers ad about a disabled woman with cerebral palsy joking about sex - which was initially aired on Channel 4 as part of its coverage of the Paralympics opening ceremony - received 151 complains, and finished just inside the top ten list.

The chief executive of the ASA Guy Parker said: "The ads that attract the highest number of complaints are often not the ones that need banning.

"Our action leads to thousands of ads being amended or withdrawn each year, mostly for being misleading, but there wasn't one misleading ad in the top 10.

"In the list there are a number of ads, which while advertising their product or service, have also sought to present a positive statement about diversity but were in fact seen by some as doing the opposite.

"In all those cases, we thought people generally would see the ads in a positive light and that the boundary between bad taste and serious or widespread offence had been navigated well enough, often through using sensible scheduling restrictions."

The list in full is as follows:

1. Moneysupermarket.com (dancing bodyguard) 1,063

2. Moneysupermarket.com (gang dance-off) 898

3. Match.com (kissing women) 896

4. Moneysupermarket.com (solo dance-off) 530

5. Paddy Power (blind football) 450

6. Smart Energy GB (Gaz and Leccy) 253

7. Paddy Power (Scotland fans) 220

8. Home Office (domestic violence) 216

9. Gourmet Burger Kitchen (vegetarianism) 195

10. Mars/Maltesers (disability) 151


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