Christmas supermarket ad banned in UK

[Aloka]

The ad. (made by Greenpeace) highlights the destructive impact of palm oil production.

Excerpt:

Supermarket chain Iceland wanted to run the Greenpeace-made animation about its effects on rainforests and endangered orangutans at Christmas before it was banned by Clearcast, the British organisation responsible for the clearance of television adverts, because it was supporting a political issue.

More at the link and a petition for the ban to be lifted : https://www.euronews.com/2018/11/12/...-be-overturned


The one and a half minute ad. can be viewed on YouTube:


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[Olderon]

Thanks for sharing the Ad, Aloka.

Seems apolitical to me. The only political thing about it seems to be the pro-palm oil lobby, which apparently has had an influence on the Advertising regulators.

[justusryans]

I agree wholeheartedly with you there Ron, it sure seems that way.

[woodscooter]

It's a short and effective message about one of the many issues the whole world has to face.

I can remember travelling through Malaysia a few years ago and seeing hundreds of miles of palm trees planted for their palm oil. At the time I heard there was a government grant available for landowners to clear their land and plant palms for oil.

The result was that some residents bought forest land cheaply and cleared it. Then they received the grant money and no-one planted palms. All the scheme achieved was deforestation and damage to the environment. Something similar may have been occurring in Indonesia, too.

This ad was banned on the grounds that it was supporting a political issue. It's true that UK law requires advertisements to be banned if they are directed towards a political end, or if they are on behalf of a body whose objects are of a political nature. Communications Act 2003 section 321.2

We know that the frozen food company Iceland is not a political body, but is Greenpeace political or not? Here's what Greenpeace says about theirself:

"Our vision is to transform the world by fundamentally changing the way people think about it. We want governments, industry and each and every person to stop viewing the Earth as an inexhaustible resource and start treating it as something precious that needs our protection and careful management. " Greenpeace

Is that a political aim? It's certainly their goal to change the way people think. I don't think that's a political activity, but clearly the administrators think so (or they were influenced, yes Olderon, quite likely).

If there is a ray of sunshine to be found in this regrettable suppression of an important truth, it's that the message might spread, and the advert might be more widely seen, through social media and word of mouth, than from a few 90-seconds exposures on national TV.