The Advertising Standards Authority reports that a Christian Party bus ad was the most complained about advert of 2009, and the most complained about non-broadcast advert that it has ever handled.

A bus side ad campaign for the Christian Party that told people “There definitely is a God” has been named as 2009’s most complained advert by the advertising watchdog.

The Advertising Standards Authority said that the ad had received 1,204 complaints.

The ad was in response to another bus side ad from the British Humanist Association – which was named as the sixth most complained about ad with 392 complaints – that read, “There’s probably no God, so stop worrying and life your life.”

http://www.utalkmarketing.com/pages/Article.aspx?ArticleID=17786&Title=%27There_is_a_God%27_ad_receives_%E2%80%98most_complained_about%E2%80%99_accolade_

A bus poster which claimed “There definitely is a God” attracted more complaints than any other advert last year, Britain’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said on Wednesday.

More than 1,200 people complained that the Christian Party’s advert was offensive to atheists and could not be substantiated.

http://in.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idINIndia-48813620100526

The ASA annual report reveals that a Christian Party outdoor ad was the most complained about ad of 2009 with 1,204 objections. The bus ad claimed “there definitely is a God” and was a response to a British Humanist Association poster that claimed that “there probably was no god”. This was the sixth most complained about ad with 392 challenges.

http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/news/asa-and-cap-plan-awareness-campaign/3013845.article

The Christian Party’s poster was a riposte to the British Humanist Association’s ad insisting “There is probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life”. The ASA did not investigate, on the grounds that political party ads are outside its remit, though it had 1,204 complaints asserting that the existence of a divine being was offensive to atheists, and in any case could not be proven. The ASA also did not investigate the atheists’ bus ad, though it was the sixth in the list of most complained about.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/may/26/does-god-exist-advertising-standards-authority

The response from ASA about the Atheist Bus campaign was that ‘the ad did not make claims about particular religions and had an upbeat rather than hostile or offensive tone. We concluded that the ad was an expression of the advertisers opinion and that the claim was not capable of being objectively substatiated’

The ASA’s Annual Report, which contains details of complaints about adverts in 2009, was published on Wednesday 26th May.