TV ad for magazine 'made light of fear'

A television advertisement that showed an elderly woman staring at an empty plate while a meals-on-wheels driver read a magazine outside her home was criticised by an advertising watchdog yesterday.

The trailer for Take A Break magazine showed the despondent pensioner at her kitchen table while the driver wiled away time with the publication. The voiceover said: "Whatever you're doing it can wait – while you Take A Break."

Charities and care workers were among 318 viewers who found the advert offensive. The ad agency withdrew it because of the volume of complaints.

The Independent Television Commission judged it had "made light of the fear and loneliness of some of society's most vulnerable members". An elderly woman, with whom others could identify, was shown "in a degrading light".

However the commission rejected complaints about a kiss between men in an advert for Marmite that viewers said portrayed a gay kiss and was screened at a time when children might be watching.

The kiss was a "clearly jokey scenario" and did not portray "homosexual intimacy or indeed sexual or romantic activity of any sort", the ITC ruled.