Paddy Power has “certain amount of pride” for Oscar Pistorious ad
Paddy Power’s head of brand Paul Sweeney has said that the company has a “certain amount of pride” that its Oscar Pistorious ad became the UK’s most complained about ad of all time.
Speaking at Advertising Week Europe on a panel about "The Social World Cup", Sweeney said that Paddy Power’s head of mischief, Ken Robertson, has the ad “on his CV” and that the company anticipated the back lash.
“We expected it. It was one ad, one paper, one day. The Pistorous story is wall-to-wall blanket coverage on television as you’ve seen and we always put big bets on the biggest media stories – this was no different.
“I guess we knew we’d be on the line of taste and decency of ‘is it right to take bets on a murder trial?’ and ‘is it right to make light of will he walk?’ in terms of the disability angle there - it was a cheap gag but we prepared for that.”
He added however, that Paddy Power wasn’t expecting complainants to take the view that the ad was in anyway supportive of violence against women, which Sweeney said “couldn’t be further from the truth”.
The ad, which received a record 5,525 complaints when it appeared in The Sun on Sunday, offered to refund “all losing bets” on the Oscar Pistorious trial if he is found not guilty.