Madame Tussauds ad banned over 'movie quotes'

A poster advert for waxwork museum Madame Tussauds has been banned by the UK advertising regulator over its misleading movie critic-style quotes.

A complainant contacted the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) about the poster for an interactive superhero movie experience at Madame Tussauds.

The poster featured images of superheroes such as Wolverine and Iron Man, alongside movie critic-style quotes saying "amazing" in English, German and Italian, and giving five-star ratings.

Merlin Entertainment Group, which owns Madame Tussauds along with other attractions such as Legoland, said that the ad was intended as a "pastiche of a real movie poster".

The company said that the four phrases of praise were based on actual feedback it had received from guests who had rated the experience on touchscreen kiosks and blogs.

Merlin said that it used "artistic licence" to translate the 9.4 out of 10 ratings it had received into more movie-style five-star ratings.

In its ruling, the ASA noted that the quotes were not attributed to any specific publication or source, meaning customers "would be aware the comments did not relate to reviews, but to comments from visitors to the experience".

However, the regulator said that the five-star rating combined with the comments in different languages gave a misleading impression to consumers.

"We considered that featuring five stars under the four phrases implied four people had rated the experience as being five stars, when we understood that visitors had not been asked to give the experience a star rating," said the watchdog.

"Therefore, while we did not consider the poster implied the experience had received positive reviews from critics, we considered that the poster gave the impression the comments were genuine quotes from visitors to the experience. Because they were not we concluded the ad was misleading."