I just read this in the news...

Posters for Golden Wonder crisps have been criticised by the advertising watchdog for making a tongue-in-cheek link to illegal drug dealing.

Golden Wonder labelled adults featured in three adverts for its crisps as a "smuggler", "user" and "dealer".

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA (NYSE: ASA - news) ) received complaints from members of the public branding the posters "tasteless and irresponsible" because they could influence children. ADVERTISEMENT


The manufacturers insisted the adverts - part of a campaign using the slogan Got any Golden Wonder mate? - were not meant as a reference to drugs, rather that their crisps are harder to find than they used to be in shops.

The ASA concluded that "to link the illegal drugs culture with crisps irresponsibly trivialised a serious social problem."

It told Golden Wonder not to use the wording in future and criticised the company for ignoring advice from an industry body not to run the adverts.

In the first advert, headlined "Smuggler", an overweight woman is shown pushing a trolley filled with packets of the company's crisps and the message: "Not as innocent as she looks, eh?"

Another poster, this time labelled "User", showed a woman with crisp packets in her bicycle basket and the words: "This mother of two has a 34.5g a day Golden Wonder habit."

In the last of the three, a man is pictured on a pavement sign along with the message: "This shopkeeper sells Golden Wonder to your children in broad daylight" and the heading "Dealer."

Golden Wonder defended the posters, saying they "created the premise that the product was so rare that a black market had been created and consumers were driven to buying and selling the product on the streets


Does it have a point or has the world gone PC mad? :rolleyes: Maybe it was that other crisp manufacturer that got people to call :confused:

I thought they were funny & pretty harmless.

Brilliant.

All stories like this work as brilliant advertising for the product itself, IMHO...

I used to like the crisps that had a small satchet of a white powder in them...

:D..

Makes you talk about it though... :D

Any advert that gets banned is immediately excellent publicity for the product in question. :D

True, they probably made the complaint themselves in the hope that it would make the papers and drum up some free advertising.

Aren't Golden Wonder responsible for "Pot Noodle, the slag of all snacks" slogan as well?! That was classic :D