This document provides summaries of several controversial advertisements from around the world: 1) An ad for Ashley Madison that suggested it was okay to cheat on an overweight wife was criticized, not for its message but for using a model's image without permission. 2) A Burger King ad in Singapore promoting a "Super Seven Incher" sandwich was pulled for sexual innuendo. 3) A shock ad campaign in Milwaukee warned about statutory rape using graphic images to get its message across. 4) An ad mocking Tony Blair's ID card proposal by giving him a Hitler-like mustache sparked outrage for comparing him to a mass murderer.

1. Most Controversial
Ads
Nathalie Likutu

2. In the world of controversial
advertisements, Ashley Madison may be the
only company looked at with more scepticism
than the inciting promos it chooses to run. In
any case, both the service, which promotes
marital infidelity, and the ad were equally
despised earlier this month, when the
polarizing dating company suggested it's okay
to cheat on your wife if she is overweight.
Remarkably, it wasn't religious groups or
female rights organizations that were most
irked by the spot, but rather the model used
on the lower half of the ad, who claimed her
portrait had been exploited without her
permission.

3. There may be no "stay away" manual in the game of
advertising, but chances are a good rule of thumb for
admen would be to refrain from insinuating fellatio in
their spots. Certainly, the innuendo in the Burger King
ad that ran in Singapore two years ago isn't tough to
recognize, and the image promoting the elongated
"Super Seven Incher" sandwich quickly drummed up
an Internet furore. Ironically, the gratuitous ad ran in
Singapore, which is known for its conservative stance
on public sexuality. Burger King quickly jumped ahead
of the controversy, claiming it was printed and run by
a local franchisee in the Asian city-state, not by the
fast food chain's corporate body. Still, though the ad
never appeared in the U.S., American advertisers
were eager to rip the pictorial, one telling Fox
News, "I've seen a lot of sexual innuendo ads and this
is about the worst."

4. Statutory rape in Milwaukee is on the rise, so
much so, that the Family Violence Partnership
hired Serve, an ad agency to create this
shockvertisement.
The point the advertisement is trying to get
across is that just because a girl has a body
physically capable of sex, doesn’t mean her
mind has developed to a stage where she’s
ready for intercourse. There is nothing subtle
about this campaign, and it is creating a huge
amount of buzz.

5. Former English P.M. Tony Blair's plan to
introduce ID cards, designed to register Brits in
a national database using such biometric data
as iris scans, facial images and fingerprints, was
controversial, but even more polarizing was
the rebuttal ad it prompted from in 2006.
Placing a Photoshopped barcode over his
upper lip to suggest a likeness to another
notorious European leader, Blair's face was
plastered with the faux moustache on
billboards and in newspapers by a political
group called NO2ID, which dreamed up the
advert during Blair's second-to-last year in
power. One Jewish parliamentarian in the U.K.
called the ad "monstrous" and said, "Hitler was
a mass murderer and to make any comparison
between him and Tony Blair is stupid and
unacceptable."

6. That dirty-minded Tom Ford has released yet
another risqué ad. The study young fashion
designer has released a series of controversial
ads which people either love or hate, all of
them very, very sexy.
In his most recent menswear ad, a young
gentleman clad in a white suit appears to yelp
in pain as he holds a bottle of beer and a cigar
in his left hand while a fully naked, very
tanned, toned woman aggressively grabs his
crotch. She seems to love it, her head thrust
back in delight, her hand propped up against
the wall.
Ford, who has designed for Gucci and YSL, is
the master at creating ads you hope your child
doesn’t stumble across when flipping through
your magazines.

7. These very graphic, extremely disturbing ads
are actually part of a real life AIDS campaign in
France.
The print advertisements consists of images of
a man having sex with a giant, black
scorpion, and a woman receiving oral sex from
an enormous, hairy tarantula.
The ads created by TBWA Paris are
disgusting, but that’s the intention of
shockvertisements. They work on levels of
unexpected, controversial imagery that is
remembered, talked about, and evokes an
emotional response.
“Come on people, use a condom. One night’s
fun is not worth it”