After receiving 115 complaints, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has ruled that DeadHappy’s Harold Shipman ads in January violated the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) Code and must not appear again.
Featuring an image of the serial murderer, the paid-for adverts appeared on Facebook and Instagram in the afternoon of January 23 before being taken down the following morning.
In its ruling that was released today, the ASA noted: “The CAP Code stated that marketing communications must be prepared with a sense of responsibility to consumers and to society. They must not contain anything likely to cause serious or widespread offence, or incorporate a shocking claim or image merely to attract attention.
“The ads contained an image of the serial murderer, Harold Shipman, a British doctor who it is estimated murdered between 215 and 260 of his patients. We considered that the image of Shipman would be instantly recognisable to many people.”
Following the backlash over the ads, which breached the regulations on harm and offence and responsible advertising, the life insurance intermediary issued an apology last month.
“We acknowledged DeadHappy’s comment that it was never their intention to offend, and reminded them that compliance with the Code is assessed according to an ad’s probable impact when taken as a whole and in context,” stated the ASA today.
“We considered the elements of the ads trivialised and made light of the murders committed by Harold Shipman, such that they were likely to cause both serious and widespread offence to those who saw them.”
The watchdog went on to say: “We further considered that any reference to the murderer in advertising material was likely to be distressing, particularly for those who had lost family members or friends at Shipman’s hands and that, in the context of an ad promoting life insurance, the distress caused was unjustified.”
It was the regulator’s conclusion that the social media adverts were not prepared with a sense of responsibility and did not comply with rules on issues of harm and offence.
DeadHappy, which previously admitted that it made a mistake in its attempt to be provocative, did not respond to a request for comment by Insurance Business.
