People Are Complaining That The McVitie's Fluffy Animal Ad Could Encourage People To Buy And Then Abandon Their Pets At Christmas
But the ad has incurred the wrath of animal lovers.
McVitie's Facebook pages and the comments under the YouTube video have been flooded with people accusing the brand of being irresponsible for featuring cute animals at a time of year when many pets are bought, only to be discarded once the festive cheer wears off and people realize they have to actually look after the things.
Here are some of the complaints on McVitie's Jaffa Cakes brand page:
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has also received 44 complaints about the ad. That might seem like a small number, but it only takes one complaint for the ad watchdog to launch an investigation and potentially ban the ad (however, those investigations are often a lengthy process and often an adjudication occurs after the ad campaign has run its course anyway.) The ASA told Business Insider: "We are carefully assessing the complaints to establish if there are grounds for further action."
Some of the complaints raised also expressed concern about a section of the ad that featured a rabbit lying on its back, which the complainants believe cause the animal distress. As a result of those complaints, McVitie's edited ad on Friday, removing that scene from both the TV and online version.
Indeed, "abby.mercer," who commented on Business Insider's article about the ad wrote: "Rabbits laying like that are experiencing tonic immobility, a last ditch survival instinct which is an attempt to play dead in the hope that the predator will release them. It causes rapid changes in heart rate and increased stress."
She later went on to encourage people to complaint to the ASA, flood McVitie's #sweeetChristmas hashtag and tell the brand they disagreed with the use of animals in the ad on its Facebook page.
McVitie's has published this statement on its website:
Here's the edited ad in full: