A complaint that a Guinness television advertisement showed a couple appearing to ride horses off a cliff and could be seen as "glorifying suicide" has been upheld by the Advertising Standards Authority.
The commercial, which is accompanied by the slogan "Live Life to the Power of Guinness", shows a couple riding horses. The advertisers said the end sequence showed the couple approaching a wall at the edge of a cliff and slowing down to jump on to land on the other side, not jumping off the cliff. They had subsequently amended the end sequence to show more clearly that the riders jumped on to land.
The authority's complaints committee said consumers would assume the commercial depicted riders jumping over the cliff and that it breached the Code of Advertising Standards in this respect. The committee welcomed the amended ending.
A complaint against a poster advertising Kilkenny Beer which portrayed naked women and men with the headline Carpe Diem (enjoy the day) was also upheld.
Kilkenny Beer is made by Guinness Ireland and the poster was designed by the same company as the horses advertisement, HHCL and Partners, based in Britain.
The complainants said that the posters exceeded the threshold of decency, exploited nudity and implied the results of excessive drinking.
The advertisers said they had positioned Kilkenny Beer as an "alternative, mysterious and mystical pint" and had used "classical" images and a headline in Latin. The visual idea was to make the bodies look like classical statues.
The authority concluded that the poster linked nudity, Kilkenny Beer and the headline in a manner which breached the code.
A complaint against a new billboard directory inquiries service was also upheld on the grounds that viewers would think it referred to Telecom Eireann instead of an alternative independent company, Conduit Ireland.
The authority also partially upheld a complaint against a newspaper advertisement by Ryanair for a £19 London-Dublin return flight which stated: "Ryanair fares are not just lower - they're half Aer Lingus's lowest fare."