The advertising watchdog has cleared a TV campaign promoting the morning-after pill, despite more than 100 complaints that it promoted unsafe sex and promiscuity.

The campaign, for Bayer Schering Pharma's Levonelle One Step morning-after pill, was the first UK television ad for such a product.

The advertisement, which aired after the 9pm watershed, featured a cartoony animation of a woman who decides to get the morning-after pill after a condom splits during sex and she feels she isn't ready for the possibility of parenthood.

The Advertising Standards Authority received 112 complaints that the "light-hearted" cartoon style of the ad trivialised the issue and might lead young people to "think that unprotected sex was not a problem and therefore encourage promiscuity".

Bayer said that it aimed to raise awareness that Levonelle is available over-the-counter as an alternative to visiting a GP or family planning clinic. The cartoon style had deliberately been chosen so as not to portray those who use emergency contraception in a negative light or stigmatise the product.

The ad did not depict a one-night stand or refer to casual sex, Bayer said.

The ASA agreed with Bayer that the ad suggested that the woman's situation was not trivial and that the pill was being used becuase the couple's contraception method, a condom, had failed.

"We considered that the ad as a whole did not trivialise the issue of emergency contraception or encourage unprotected sex, we concluded that the ad would not cause serious or widespread offence," the ASA ruled.

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