An ad for the building society Nationwide featuring Dominic West has been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority.
The ASA received 281 complaints about the Crown star’s Nationwide ads, in which he played a sneering and superior bank manager.
In the ad, Dominic’s character was heard mocking customers’ concerns about losing their life savings and other banks closing local branches.
At the end, a voiceover declared: “Unlike the big banks we’re not closing our branches.”
The ASA confirmed on Wednesday that the ad would be banned in its current form, out of concern it wrongly suggested that Nationwide had not closed branches of its own.
A post on the watchdog’s website read: “The ad must not appear again in [its] current form.
“We told Nationwide Building Society not to mislead in relation to the closure of their branches.”
On the same day, the ASA also ruled that an Instagram post by Katie Price promoting a low-calorie diet brand would also be banned, for not properly stating that it was an advert.
The ASA has warned both The Skinny Food Co and Katie herself “to ensure that their future ads were obviously identifiable as marketing communications, and the commercial intent was made clear, and that identifiers such as ‘#ad’ were clearly and prominently displayed”.
“We also told them to ensure that their ads did not irresponsibly promote diets that fell below 800 kcal a day,” they added. “And to only make weight loss or weight maintenance claims for foods if the claim was authorised on the Great Britain nutrition and health claims register and the foods met the associated conditions of use.”
Last year, the ASA made headlines when an ad for Calvin Klein featuring the singer FKA Twigs was banned.
This decision sparked a backlash – including from the Grammy nominee herself – and the ruling was subsequently partly reversed.