Coming in at number three on the Advertising Standards
Authority "Top 10 most complained about advertisements of 2015" is
the Christmas PayPal advert. This advert attracted 464 complaints over the
Christmas period while it was being shown.
The adverts consisted of two young children who were
concerned that they weren't getting Christmas presents this year as they had not seen their parents go shopping for Christmas presents . The main idea of this
advertisement is that the parents did not need to go shopping as they purchased
all of their presents this year through PayPal with the tagline "Check out
before they know it".
However, complaints arose concerns that the advert
revealed the truth about Father Christmas as they believed that since the
parents were not purchasing any gifts that they would not receive any at all. This caused parents to complain and worry that if their children were watching this advert, they might start to think that Father Christmas was not real. The complaints caused concern over the timing that the advert was shown on television as it was at peak times such as 5pm/6pm which meant that the advert could not be avoided by children.
Although this advert gathered a large number of complaints
over the short period that the advert was aired on television, the ASA resulted
the advert as not upheld as they believed the advert did no harm and did not
make it clear about the truth about Father Christmas. However after the
complaints arose and word spread across social media regarding the negative
advert, PayPal decided to independently change the scheduling of the
advertisement in order to avoid the times that children may see the
advertisements.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdu0WKIhjeU
click the link above to watch the advert. Please comment below how you feel about the advert and if you feel that it reveals the truth about Father Christmas. Would you have complained about this advert?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdu0WKIhjeU
click the link above to watch the advert. Please comment below how you feel about the advert and if you feel that it reveals the truth about Father Christmas. Would you have complained about this advert?
I actually really liked this advert and thought it was cleverly done. It didn't tell people that father Christmas wasn't real at all, just that the mum and dad usually shopped for presents. When we were kids we only got one main big present from Santa and the rest were from mum and dad. I think it was the first of the festive ads to launch, so I suspect that may have been why so many complained about it. (Bah, humbug!)
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