Richard Branson’s Virgin Wines and the News Limited-owned Moshtix have been forced to pull a sickening internet ad that glorified youth binge drinking, following a Crikey probe into its breach of dozens of self-imposed advertising standards.

The “be the king of the kick on” ad — erased from the web late this morning — depicted a singlet-clad youngster  crowd surfing at a rock festival. It urged punters to “drink like a rock-star” but “pay like a cover band”.

“When the party is over and acts you so loudly screamed for have gone — do as they do … kick on in style!”, it screamed.

“There is nothing worse than running out of grog after the event — with this special offer they’ll be no excuses!”

It directed revellers to a special Virgin Wines Moshtix promotional page (now offline) where they could snag a 12-bottle case of Virgin plonk for $119.99 — or just $9.99 a bottle.

Virgin Wines Australia campaigns manager Sandi Puttock seemed unaware of the breaches when contacted by Crikey this morning. She confessed the idea was a “joint promotion” between Virgin and Moshtix.

But a contrite Tracy Ayres, the managing director of Virgin Wines, called back later to inform us she had immediately pulled the promotion from the web.

“We just made a mistake and it shouldn’t have gone out like that at all. I got it out and compared it to the advertising standards and there was a clear breach,” she said. When asked whether she regretted the ad, Ayers said “that she regretted promoting alcohol in that way.”

Ayres said that the content had not been approved by her before it went out.

Under the industry’s self-policing initiative — the Alcohol Beverages Advertising Code, advertisers must not encourage excessive boozing or under-age drinking. All adults appearing in a turps ad must be over 25 –and  those under 25 may only appear as part of a “natural crowd or background scene”.

Furthermore, ads can’t “create or contribute to a significant change in mood or environment” and “must not depict the consumption or presence of alcohol beverages as a cause of or contributing to the achievement of personal, business, social, sporting, s-xual or other success.”

Any implication that alcohol is part of a celebration, or contributed to success, achievement or therapeutic benefit is also out, as are challenges or dares for people to drink or sample a particular brand of alcohol.

Shockingly, it would appear the Virgin-Moshtix ad is in breach of all those clauses, as well as the numerous parts of the Advertising Standards Bureau’s Code of Ethics and Advertising Code for Children.

Despite this, the pitch has festered on the web since Wednesday when Fairfax culture site The Vine first drew attention to its unsavoury tenor.

Health experts slammed the ad as a “total disgrace” when contacted by Crikey this morning. The director of the McCusker Centre for Action on Alcohol and Youth, Mike Daube, said he had never seen anything like it.

“It’s hard to think of anything that could be much more irresponsible than this ad, it’s actually embarrassing how bad it is,” Daube said.

“It’s this kind of thing that puts a lie to the alcohol industry’s claims to responsibility. On the one hand they might think getting drunk is funny. But these young people are going to be in car smashes … they’re going to be involved in violence and assault.

“Anybody who thinks this sort of thing is a joke hasn’t seen the victims, the violence and hasn’t sat in emergency departments on a Friday and Saturday night.”

The rock-star lifestyle glorified by the ads often leads straight to the grave. Bon Scott, Keith Moon, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, John Bonham, Bill Haley, and Def Leppard’s Steve Clark all met their maker at the bottom of a glass (however, according to Crikey subeditor Michael Vaughan, Scott still “lives”).

Virgin Wines has been a booze stalwart in the UK for many years, but is a relatively recent entrant to the Australian market with its cut-price home-delivery service. Moshtix, an official ticket seller for next week’s Splendour in the Grass festival, did not respond to Crikey‘s repeated requests for comment.