A “sexually suggestive” banner ad for MatureDatingUK.com which ran on YouTube has been slapped down by the Advertising Standards Authority after the watchdog ruled it was too racy to be seen by children.
The ad, featuring a woman wearing a short dress, with her legs apart and one hand next to her crotch, attracted a number of complaints amid claims that it was offensive and overtly sexual.
It was seen on consumers’ email accounts, on rival site plentyoffish.com, and on YouTube after being set up on Google AdWords – which can serve ads linked to consumers’ browsing history and preferences.
In its defence, the company behind MatureDating – which owns around 30 websites including uniformdating.com and benaughty.com – acknowledged that the ad may be provocative, but believed it was not explicit in content. It added that children could view more explicit content on YouTube.
The ASA actually threw out the complaints about the ad appearing on email accounts and Plentyoffish.com, ruling it was unlikely to cause serious or widespread offence.
But the watchdog did consider the ad could be viewed as sexually suggestive and was unsuitable for an untargeted medium such as YouTube, where it could be seen by children. It ruled it must not appear again in such media.
Meanwhile Google said that the ad breached its own policies and confirmed that it was taking action to have it removed.
