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A screenshot of one of the Hunky Dorys ads. Hunky Dorys
Hunky Dorys

Those Hunky Dorys ads are back… and so are the complaints

The Hunky Dorys girls are back and this time they are playing Gaelic football.

HUNKY DORYS IS at it again.

The Meath-based crisp company has launched another advertising campaign featuring scantily-clad women playing sport.

Last year, the bikini-wearing girls were depicted playing rugby but this time around the models are having a go at Gaelic football.

The ‘Rugby’ campaign sparked controversy last year and was branded sexist by those who complained to Ireland’s advertising watchdog.

This morning, the Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland confirmed that it has already received a small number of complaints about the ads, which started to appear in newspapers on Sunday.

“There have been just a handful of complaints this morning,” a spokeswoman for the ASAI told TheJournal.ie.

“No action has been decided upon yet,” she added.

One of the complaints referred to the Hunky Dorys’ website, which pits two girls’ teams – the Golds and the Emeralds – against each other.

The GAA said it was not consulted on the campaign and any queries should be directed to Largo Foods, which owns the Hunky Dorys brand, and that it had no comment to make on the new ads.

The ads, which also appear in today’s papers, feature women in revealing tops with straplines such as “Still staring?” and “Bursting with Flavour”.

Last year, the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) sent a solicitor’s letter to the crisp company because it called themselves “proud sponsors of Irish Rugby” in the ads.

This time around, the company claims to just be “proud supporters of Gaelic football.”

Largo Foods says its campaigns for Hunky Dorys are generally “edgier” than its competitors because the brand has a “great sense of humour”.

On its website, the company says its 2010 ‘Rugby’ campaign was a “massive success,” leading the brand to increase its worth to €1.5m.

Earlier this year, Club Orange used a similar tactic in its summer advertising campaign. The television ad attracted a lot of attention for its depiction of bikini-wearing women talking about their bits.

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