Some of the best advertising ideas are often stifled by sensitive viewers, as Mini is relearning, the hard way, but the car company has taken the hit on the chin and has responded like a boss.

BMW, who owns Mini, came under scrutiny from a bunch of people who seem to have way too much time on their hands. The issue raised was in relation to a new billboard, which pictures an outline of a Mini Cooper, with a large hole where the car should be. A banner across the advert reading: “Drive it like it’s stolen!”

Residents in the Sowetan area complained to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and said the advert promotes and glorifies the stealing of cars, speeding and reckless driving, but there’s more to the ad than meets the eye, as Mini has explained:

We launched the new MINI and put up a billboard that read, “Old School Meets New Cool”. It was an awesome billboard. In fact, it was so awesome that somebody decided to steal it.

We figured that the empty space looked bland so we put up another billboard. The headline was the same, but we also added the tagline “Drive It Like It’s Stolen”. This was purely a reference to our previous billboard.

We’re not sure what the word on the street is, but it must be that MINI billboards are made of pure gold, because our new billboard was also swiped.

As you can see, we never meant to cause offence and apologise to anyone who took our billboard to mean anything other than a reference to the previous one.

The company has decided to roll with the punches, and has seen the whole debacle as an opportunity to give the public a chance to get involved in its next campaign.

If you head over to the Mini Facebook page and finish the line “Drive it like it’s…”, you can stand a chance to win a Mini for a week, as well as having your entry on the actual billboard.