Madame Tussauds London has had an internal advert banned by the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA).
The ASA received a complaint from a guest who stated that a poster for the waxwork museum’s 4D cinema attraction was misleading.
A movie-style poster displayed four comments received from guest feedback and four ‘five star’ ratings under each.
Madame Tussauds operator Merlin Entertainments said it used “artistic licence” to transform the 9.4 out of 10 ratings the film received into five-stars.
Merlin said the poster, which was for the Marvel Super Heroes film, was meant to be a “pastiche of a real movie poster”, according to the Digital Spy website.
The ASA ruled that the advert was misleading.
“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.”
Madame Tussauds was featured on the BBC television series Young Apprentice on Monday and will tomorrow celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of its founder Marie Tussaud.