Claims that Vinnie Jones encourages unsafe behaviour in British Heart Foundation ad rubbished by ASA
The ASA has not upheld complaints against the British Heart Foundation (BHF) ad, which featured Vinnie Jones promoting ‘hands only’ CPR.
Twenty complaints were made against the ad, with the complainants suggesting the ad was harmful and likely to encourage unsafe behaviour, because they believed it showed incorrect CPR techniques.
The BHF said the ad encouraged viewers to visit the website to gain more information, and that they knew of 15 reported instances of people applying the lessons learnt from the ad with a positive outcome.
The ASA noted that the ad had been prepared in consultation with the Resuscitation Council (UK), and in line with European Resuscitation Council guidelines, and was aimed at those who were untrained or unwilling to provide mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
The advertising standards body concluded that it did not believe that trained individuals would consider the messages of the 40-second ad to override their own CPR training, and that since it was made clear Jones was promoting hands only CPR, and showed the correct technique for this, the ad was not harmful and did not encourage unsafe behaviour.