The advertising watchdog has thrown out complaints against a British Heart Foundation (BHF) ad featuring Vinnie Jones, which aimed to raise awareness of ‘hands only’ CPR, and included the line: “No kissing. You only kiss your missus on the lips.”
Backed by The Bee Gees song “Stayin’ Alive”, Jones carried out compressions on the man’s chest and stated “Remember call 999, ’cause hard and fast is staying alive. Hands only CPR. It’s not as hard as it looks”.
But the Advertising Standards Authority received 20 complaints, claiming the ad was harmful and likely to encourage unsafe behaviour, because they believed it showed incorrect CPR techniques.
The BHF responded by saying the ad was designed to encourage viewers to visit its website to gain more information, and that they knew of a number of instances of people applying the lessons learnt from the ad.
The charity said the Resuscitation Council UK, the European Resuscitation Council and the American Heart Association recommended the hands-only CPR technique, and provided a letter from the Resuscitation Council that made clear that it supported the BHF campaign’s content and aims.
Rejecting the complaints, the ASA concluded that it did not believe the ad would encourage trained individuals to override their own CPR training, and, that since it was made clear Jones was promoting hands only CPR, the ad was not harmful and did not encourage unsafe behaviour.
