Controversial Paddy Power advert scrapped

Paddy Power has averted another advertising uproar on its provocative advertising strategy by scrapping a new billboard scheduled to promote betting on the Ashes – a traditional cricketing clash between England and Australia.

It appears that a lone Twitter post from one Andrew Bloch triggered the coverage, which UK media has picked up on through the social media network.

In it, Bloch references a Paddy Power mobile billboard which proclaims: “The only Aussie we don’t want to get out” alongside a picture of famous Aussie entertainer Rolf Harris (85), currently serving a 5 year jail sentence on indecent assault charges on which he was convicted in a London court a year ago.  Harris has appealed against the sentence.

The Independent was just one of several mainstream newspapers and other publications that reported and carried a picture of the scrapped advert, quoting a Paddy Power spokesman as saying that the material was “…released by an unauthorised tweet and ‘although potentially amusing for the cricket fan,’ it had decided to destroy the ad because of the ‘potential to cause offence'”.

Paddy Power’s controversial advertising strategy frequently makes mainstream headlines, most recently last month when it deployed a mobile billboard to Dover with the slogan “Immigrants jump in the back (but only if you’re good at sport)” at the height of a surge in illegal immigrants attempting to cross the Channel to England.

And last week football legend Roy Keane launched legal proceedings against the firm after it used his image in one of its similarly provocative campaigns (see previous  reports).

Last year the betting company was the subject of a record number of complaints to the ASA when it released an advert to coincide with the Oscar Pistorius murder trial, offering punters “money back if he walks”.

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