Black Opium perfume advert cleared of claims that it glamourises drugs
A campaign for the Yves Saint Laurent perfume Black Opium has been cleared by the advertising watchdog following complaints that it glamorises drug use and addiction.
The television and video on demand ads feature model Edie Campbell running through streets searching for th bottle of perfume that has been taken from her.
The final sequence shows her recovering the bottle from a man and spraying her neck with it before slumping back against a wall.
Video: YouTube/Yves Saint Laurent Beauty
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) received 11 complaints that the ads offensive and unsuitable for children to see because the woman's actions simulated drug use and addiction.
L'Oreal, trading as Yves Saint Laurent, said the storyline had no connection to drug use or addiction.
It said the advert was a "modern quest of a woman running through the streets of Shanghai to find the man she loved and the perfume he had taken from her".
Yves Saint Laurent said the ads did not suggest that the woman was a drug addict waking in the night and searching for a drug dealer, or that her reaction on spraying the perfume suggested drug use.
The ASA, which banned a previous advert for the fragrance Belle d'Opium in 2011, said of the latest ad: