The Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) said it was considering investigating Crown Paints' "Hannah & Dave" advert.
Comic Jenny Eclair said it must be taken off air over its implication that a woman "conned a man into fatherhood". Apologising for it, the Darwen-based paint firm said it appreciated "people have differing views on humour".
The advert, part of a series called Life Stories, includes a song about the four-year relationship between the characters Hannah and Dave. The lyrics state that "now a baby's coming and they don't know what it is", before continuing: "Hannah's hoping for a girl, Dave's just hoping that it's his."
Tweeting about the advert being "beyond mad", Eclair said the line was "massively offensive". She added that Crown Paints needed to "get that offensive baby ad off air" as its creators had "basically... set up a scenario that implies a woman has possibly conned a man into fatherhood".
Replying, author and podcast host Daisy Buchanan said she welcomed Eclair's tweet as "I honestly thought it was me being mad". Other Twitter users responding to Eclair's tweet said the advert was "offensive", "misogynistic" and a "serious error of judgement".
In a statement, a spokeswoman for the paint firm said the series of ads were "intended to be a humorous celebration of special life moments that prompt people to paint their homes, in this case focusing on Hannah and Dave, a happy couple expecting a baby together". "Whilst the ad has been broadly well received, we appreciate that people have differing views on humour and we apologise if any of the lyrics have caused offence," she added.
Reacting to the company's explanation, blogger and radio presenter Nickie O'Hara said their "gaslighting response" was "just abhorrent".
An ASA spokeswoman said it had received 58 complaints about the advert and was "currently assessing [them] carefully to determine whether there are grounds for an investigation".
And so to my question: Should the Hannah and Dave advert be taken off air? I say no: although the ASA has been trying to fight against adverts which contain obvious gender stereotypes for going on five years now, I am simply not convinced that an obviously comedic advert accusing a woman of having a baby with someone who isn't her husband - especially not for a company which has nothing to do with family planning whatsoever and has produced various other ads along these lines without incident - rises to the sorts of levels where they should be bringing out the sledgehammers. The controversy surrounding this advert appears to have lingered for about a week and Crown is not going to change its mind now.