Transport for London (TfL) has banned another West End play’s poster after the out-of-home (OOH) failed to meet the network’s advertising standards guidelines.
The contentious advert was designed for a recently opened theatre show, Operation Mincemeat: A New Musical, and featured mock ‘graffiti’ which altered the text from ’22 five-star reviews’ to ’39’, before being revised to ’58’. 
Explaining how the poster was allowed elsewhere, a spokesperson for Operation Mincemeat said: ‘It is of course complete nonsense and belittling to the public’s intelligence, who can obviously tell graffiti from printing!”
Pointing out the financial challenge in redesigning a poster, they added that changing the poster would ‘inflict unnecessary and damaging costs’ for a show that ‘doesn’t have the vast resources of a Hamilton or Book of Mormon’.
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As part of TfL’s advertising policy, the guidelines state that the network does not allow adverts which feature graffiti, as it encourages wider acts of vandalism across the transport service.
A Transport for London spokesperson commented, “While this campaign was not referred to TfL directly, it was reviewed by our advertising partner and was found not to comply with our policy.
“Alternative adverts promoting this show are running on our network and we always look to work with brands to ensure their creatives adhere to our advertising policy.”
The latest banned OOH follows in the wake of TfL’s recent removal of another West End play’s poster, which was forced to redesign its creative.
Last month the network banned the promotional advert for Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding for its depiction of a tiered Victoria sponge wedding cake, announcing that it broke TfL’s food high in fat, salt and sugar (HFSS) guidelines.
