Advertisements for the brand Litty Liquor featuring the rapper ArrDee have been banned for featuring the musician, who is under 25, and encouraging excessive and irresponsible drinking.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) found that two Instagram posts from December that featured photos of ArrDee in a distillery surrounded by bottles of spiced rum had breached rules.
Another post featured a video of the rapper in an empty nightclub, trying and rejecting two unidentified brands of rum before he is shown in a distillery mixing liquids and testing the results until he is happy.
The video then cuts back to the nightclub which is now filled with people and loud music as ArrDee dances away from the camera to join friends on the dance floor.
The final scene shows box of Litty Liquor products with the on-screen text “#GETLIT”.
The ASA received one complaint that the ads breached rules because they featured someone who was, or seemed to be, under 25, and encouraged excessive and irresponsible consumption of alcohol.
Litty Liquor apologised for including the rapper in the advertisements.
The company also said it understood how the phrase “#GETLIT” could have been perceived as promoting excessive and irresponsible alcohol consumption, but said it intended to promote their products in a responsible and appropriate manner.
The ASA said: “We understood that the word ‘lit’ had a long history of being used as a slang term for being drunk, and that it had also become popular within the rap music scene to indicate being intoxicated.
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“We noted that in recent years the term ‘lit’ had also been used in rap music to mean that something was exciting, or of an excellent quality.
“However, because the ad was focused on the creation and consumption of an alcoholic drink, and was set in a nightclub and a distillery, we considered that consumers would likely associate the phrase “#GETLIT” … to relate to the consumption of alcohol, and becoming intoxicated.”
“We therefore considered that the ad was likely to encourage excessive consumption of alcohol,” the ASA added.
“While we welcomed Litty Liquor’s removal of the ad, we concluded that the ad was irresponsible because it encouraged excessive drinking, and breached the code.”