ASA bans Golden Wonder ads for trivialising drugs

Golden Wonder is being forced to ditch a poster campaign after the Advertising Standards Association (ASA) upheld complaints that the ads linked drug culture to crisps.

Golden Wonder decided to ignore the advice of the ASA’s pre-vetting service, which advised it not to run the ads.

Before launching the campaign in May, Golden Wonder voluntarily approached the Committee of Advertising Practice copy advice team and was told not to run the ads, which were created by Quiet Storm.

The campaign uses the tagline: “Got any Golden Wonder mate?” One of the ads features the head and shoulders of a man and uses the headline: “This shopkeeper sells Golden Wonder to your children in broad daylight. Think about it.”

The ASA has ruled that the posters should be taken down because they trivialise a serious social problem.

l The ASA has also upheld complaints against NTL from rival BT for its direct mailer titled “Sky & BT. You get two suppliers. Twice the hassle”. This is the fifth time that complaints against NTL have been upheld in the past 12 months.

BT objected that NTL compared its direct debit price with Sky’s and BT’s non-direct debit prices and also challenged the claim “nearly 3 million people have chosen ntl:home for their TV, telephone and internet services.”