Marmite advert gets kiss-of-life as TV censors reject complaints

TELEVISION viewers' complaints about a kiss in an advert for Marmite were today rejected by a watchdog.

Dozens protested to the Independent Television Commission that the ad portrayed a gay kiss and was screened at a time when children might be watching.

In the advert, a swimmer receives the kiss of life after being pulled from the sea and when he suddenly regains consciousness he clamps his mouth to the lifeguard's.

The cameras then reveal that the lifeguard had eaten a Marmite sandwich moments before the rescue.

The ITC ruled that the kiss was a "clearly jokey scenario" and did not portray "homosexual intimacy or indeed sexual or romantic activity of any sort". They decided the advert was inoffensive and did not uphold the complaints.

But the ITC did uphold 318 complaints about an advertisement for Take A Break magazine for its portrayal of a meals on wheels service.

It featured a mealsonwheels driver parked outside a block of flats engrossed in the magazine while an elderly woman was shown sitting at her kitchen table next to an empty plate.

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