OFFENSIVE?: The Advertising Standards Authority found Tui was wrong to use a double entendre, linking a double down burger to women's breasts.

DB Breweries brand Tui has been slapped on the wrist but suffered no other penalty for suggesting that eating KFC's Double Down burger might not be the best way to get pleasure from "two breasts".

The beer brand's "Yeah Right" billboards have become a Kiwi cultural icon over the years, but have also been known to cross the lines of decency set by the Advertising Standards Authority.

In the most recent incident, two public complainants objected to a billboard, displayed in both Napier and Auckland, which said "Double Down, the most pleasure you can get from two breasts" alongside the mocking "Yeah right" statement that has become Tui's catch-phrase.

One female complainant said: "As a woman I find this advert most offensive, disrespectful and sexist.

"I do not understand the connection between beer and breasts and what this advertisement means."

Another complainant said it breached alcohol advertising guidelines forbidding the use of "unduly masculine themes" or "sexually provocative or suggestive" links between "liquor and sexual attraction or performance".

DB responded by saying the billboard was a comment on KFC's limited release Double Down burger which was made using two chicken breasts and no buns.

"The Double Down generated a lot of debate and, keeping in tradition with Tui Yeah Right's history of commentating on topical issues, this Yeah Right expresses a voice for consumers who indulged in the Double Down and were underwhelmed by their purchase," DB said in its response to the complaints.

"DB submits that whilst the complainant may not have been aware of the Double Down burger the majority of the public would have been (given the intense level of interest at the time) and would have viewed the advertisement merely as a humorous commentary on the story of the day."

The company said the ad was neither unduly masculine, sexually provocative nor suggested a link between liquor and sexual performance.

"We fail to see a link between liquor and sexual performance," DB said.

However the majority of the Advertising Standards Complaints Board considered the double reference - to both chicken breasts and women's breasts - was in breach of the expectation for a "high standard of social responsibility" required by the liquor advertising code.

A minority on the board called it a "clever play on words about a topical issue" but the majority won out and the complaints were upheld.

DB said it had removed the billboards, after only a brief showing, in early June in the normal course of business.