Time of Giving


All year round companies strive to create the best adverts on the market in order to tell a story about their brand or products.  These are not only shown on TV channels but also stream our social media feeds to evoke an emotional response in the viewers.  November and December are two very important months for these adverts, specifically in the UK where companies like Sainsbury, M&S and John Lewis create some of the best Christmas Adverts of the year. 

Early November, Deeside-based food firm Iceland in collaboration with Greenpeace, decided to exploit this opportunity and used their advert to raise awareness on the palm-oil industry and its' effects on the rain forest, in particular the Orangutan species entitled 'Rang-tan'.  Ironically, this Christmas advert was banned from airing on UK Television after being deemed as "too political" by Clearcast, the NGO that decides which ads are fit to be aired on UK's four major TV networks.  

 The decision to ban this advert for being 'too political' raised many eyebrows across the globe.  Richard Walker, Iceland's managing director, claimed to be "absolutely gutted".  He told the BBC that Iceland's aim was make shoppers more conscious of their decisions when buying their products.
 The culmination of our palm oil project is offering our customers the choice of an orangutan-friendly Christmas, and we wanted to reflect this in our advertising. Our commitment to help protect the home of orangutans remains extremely close to our hearts.
The reason as to why an ad like this would be banned for supporting a political issue makes us question the extent of material banned from airing.  Thankfully, we live in a time where social media is possibly at its peak and the video received more than 30 million views.  Clearcasts ban actually shed more light on the emotional video, creating more awareness of the dangers of the palm oil industry, using the award winning Emma Thompson's voice over to make it that more effective.  

Such a ban made me more weary of the content shown to us on TV in this time of year.  So much money is put into making emotional and captivating adverts (for example John Lewis' use of Elton John's life to showcase the importance of a piano as a gift) that we tend to forget other major issues taking place in the world around us.  Hopefully others feel similar and will take this into consideration and take some time to make a difference to any cause in need.  After all, Christmas is a time of giving, right?   

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