Habito has defeated a second complaint about “offensive” advertising.

The Advertising Standards Authority has today confirmed that a TV campaign depicting a cartoon man being ripped apart by werewolves did not break any rules.

In January the online broker and lender successfully defended itself against a similar complaint that an advert it took out in a women’s magazine was provocative.

The magazine ad cited YouGov research which found that one in ten couples say that getting a mortgage made their sex lives hell.

The ad was headed “Mortgage Kama Sutra” and included illustrations suggestive of sexual positions with captions such as “Downpayment Doggy”, “The Standing Variable Rate”, “Prime 69” and “The Base-rate Scissor”.

The latest Habito advert to trigger complaints aired in January on TV and video on-demand services.

The cartoon featured a man viewing a house for sale, before being chased and attacked by a pack of werewolves, who ripped apart his body, exposing his skeleton and organs.

The man’s dismembered skeleton hand then pressed a button on a mobile phone, which said “Habito Go”.

The scene then changed to show a set of  keys with wings flying to open the door to the house which now displayed a “Sold” sign outside.

The voice over said: “Don’t let anyone else get your dream home. 

“Get ahead of the pack with Habito Go. 

“It’s either Hell or Habito.”

The advert had been given the green light by Clearcast, the body responsible for approving commercials for broadcast, with the caveat that it should not be shown in or around children’s programmes.

However, an unspecified number of complainants, who believed that the ads were too graphic to be seen by children, challenged whether the ads were appropriately restricted, as they appeared before 9pm and during family programmes.

But Habito responded that the adverts were broadcast around programmes such as Miss Marple, White House Farm, Granchester and Vera on ITV Hub, and Crazy Delicious on All 4. 

The mortgage firm said that all of these programmes aired after 8pm and the majority went out after 9pm and so they would be seen by an older target audience.

Clearcast said that the advert was the latest in a series for Habito which had used an over-the-top grisly animation style. 

It found that the “gruesome imagery and fearsome sound effects” were not realistic and were suggestive of the Itchy & Scratchy inserts in The Simpsons.

Clearcast said the potential distress that could be caused by the ad’s content was “balanced by the humorous exaggeration and absurdity of the style used”.

The ASA ruled that no changes to the content or scheduling of the advert was necessary.