Supermarket's Christmas ad about deforestation, palm oil ruled too 'political' for British TV

Posted

November 12, 2018 08:50:19

An advertising watchdog has deemed a supermarket Christmas ad campaign too "political" for broadcast in the UK.

The ad, which highlights the destruction of rainforests for oil palm production, was originally created for Greenpeace.

UK supermarket Iceland, which has a partnership with Greenpeace, was given permission to place its logo on the market.

However, a bid to broadcast the ad on commercial television was blocked.

Clearcast, the body responsible for advertising advertising material on behalf of Britain's major commercial television networks, said the clip was evaluated against the rules of the UK Code of Broadcast Advertising.

It pointed to the rule that applied to the commercial:

Advertisement Contravenes the prohibition on political advertising if it is:

An advertisement which is inserted by or on behalf of a body whose objects are wholly or mainly of a political nature.

Clearcast's concerns do not extend to the content or message of the ad.

On Friday the supermarket launched a social media campaign followers to the full-length ad online.

By Monday morning, the ad had been viewed more than 2.9 million times on the Iceland Foods' YouTube channel.

Reposts of the clip have been viewed from various social media platforms.

And an online petition to have the ad appearing on commercial television has attracted nearly 600,000 signatures.

Mark Topps, who launched the petition, said: "I think this ad would help educate people about how they are killing orangutans and their homes, I feel this is an injustice.

Its founder Richard Walker told the UK's The Guardian the company was "not anti-palm oil", however, it was against deforestation.

"We think this is a huge story that needs to be told," Mr Walker said.

"We always knew there was a risk [the clip would not be cleared for TV] but we gave it our best shot. "

Clearcast pointed out that it was not technically banned, but rather not approved for broadcast.

"Clearcast is not a regulator and we do not ban ads," a statement from the body said.

topics:

information-and-communication,

advertising,

environmental-impact

environment,

conservation,

united-kingdom