Guinness amends horses ad following complaints

A cinema advertisement for Guinness which appears to show a couple riding horses off a cliff will be amended following a fresh…

A cinema advertisement for Guinness which appears to show a couple riding horses off a cliff will be amended following a fresh complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland (ASAI).

The television version of the commercial has already been amended after a complaint, upheld last month by the authority, that it could be "glorifying suicide".

The cinema commercial shows a man and a woman racing on horseback towards the edge of the Cliffs of Moher in Co Clare to a Patti Smith soundtrack.

The picture freezes as the couple jump a low wall at the cliff-edge, and is accompanied by the caption Live Life to the Power of Guinness.

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The ASAI said the television commercial "showed behaviour which is harmful to riders and horses and could be seen as glorifying suicide". It said consumers would assume the riders jumping over the cliff. It decided it breached the advertising code in this respect.

The company responsible for the advertisement, London-based HHCL and Partners, had already amended the ending to comply with the authority's code by the time this decision was published. The television version now shows the riders safely jumping over a low wall onto visible land.

A spokeswoman for Guinness Ireland said the cinema version of the commercial would be changed within a couple of weeks. "We have taken on board the judgment by the Advertising Standards Authority which was for television but in the spirit of the code it is being applied to cinema."