It’s a case of history repeating itself once more as Paddy Power’s latest ad campaign, which was debuted outside Liverpool Lime Street Station, was taken down from national circulation after just three hours.
The tongue-in-cheek ad suggests scousers are waiting on one last wish – Liverpool winning the league next season – after Margaret Thatcher’s death and Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement both happening this year.
Revealing the news that the ad had been rejected by Network Rail on its blog Paddy Power said the ad at Lime Street had received a “brilliant reaction” locally and on social media, so much so that the bookmaker had decided to roll it out nationally on advertising sites at other railway stations, it was here the bookmakers plan came a cropper as when it booked ads on the transvision system – something that exists across all the major stations -the the ads got pulled.
The blog reads: “Paddy Power decided to roll it out nationally on advertising sites at railway stations.
"However, Network Rail has had other ideas and pulled it. With customer complaints clearly being something Network Rail takes very seriously Paddy Power has looked at the real bugbear for most rail passengers and have given odds of 20/1 that there will be a reduction in average train fares in January 2014 compared to the rise of fares in January 2013.”
Paddy Power is no stranger to having its removed as so far this year it has been forced to take down its billboard poking fun at Chelsea striker Fernando Torres at Stanford Bridge and had its pant-shaped hot air balloon removed by the organisers of Cheltenham Festival.