Baileys cleared of ‘violent’ ad complaint

The Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) has cleared Diageo of a complaint against its Baileys Christmas commercial for featuring “violent and aggressive behaviour”

The Baileys Christmas advertisement has been cleared by the ASA of complaints claiming it portrayed “violent and aggressive behaviour”

According to the ASA, which received nine complaints against the advertisement in total, Diageo defended the commercial by claiming that it did not “link alcohol with violent or aggressive behaviour in any way”.

Released in the run-up to Christmas last year, the Baileys ad is a contemporary retelling of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker ballet featuring members of the Royal Ballet Company.

The commercial features a confrontational dance between the Swan Princess character, the Nutcracker Prince and the Mouse King. Two different length versions of the ad were released.

The dance ends as the Swan Princess performs a pirouette, striking the Mouse King across the face before she rejoins her friends, at which point text reading “Spend time with the girls this Christmas” appears.

However, Diageo stated that since the ad was based on a well-known fairytale, the scenes were “obviously fictional” and that the confrontational dance “formed an integral part of the narrative”.

The drinks company also highlighted the “light-hearted and humorous” manner in which the ad was filmed and pointed out that none of the main characters were seen to consume alcohol.

Explaining its reasons for not upholding complaints made against the ad, the ASA said: “We considered that viewers would understand that the ads were a fictional and stylised retelling of a popular Christmas ballet, and would understand the dancing featured, including the choreographed confrontational movements between the main characters and the final pirouette, to be a visual expression of the story, as opposed to a realistic depiction of violent or aggressive behaviour.

“We therefore concluded that the ads were not in breach of the code.”

Take a look at Baileys’ Christmas commercial below.