New TV ad for Robinsons about mum and son ?

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There's a new TV advert for Robinsons squash
Someone was just watching it on the train and I found it here.
What do you think..?

Wondering how many other schools were discussing this in their staff meetings this week? We all felt it reflected the reasons we're struggling so much with behaviour. There will be no Robinson's in our staff room, that's for sure!

Such a bad message.
Schools are struggling at the moment with poor behaviour and lack of (some) parents backing.
This advert just plays into the school vs parents idea. We should support each other instead.

Awful advert , the main message seems to be that parents who really love their kids laugh about bad behaviour instead of dealing with it .

As an ad, it's totally rubbish. Ma gets called out of work to collect badly behaved son, they go home, both get some downtime and liberal amounts of juice and laugh about it. Cue the projecting excusniks - child has issues, school dealt with it so that's that, etc and the killer tagline in the ad "Real Love".

I agree with everyone saying about disrespecting the school and laughing about the boy’s behaviour, terrible message.

As for the diluting juice, there’s hardly any in that glass!

I now associate Robinsons with crap parenting.

Proper lazy thinking there from Robinsons.

Not only was what the kid did bad enough to get a call home, but it reinforces its OK to be disrespectful and misbehave at school.

This not only sends the message that it's OK to treat what teachers say as a big joke, but also, and I think massively important, is that misbehaviour is something everyone else has to put up.

The poor children in a class that have to regularly witness appalling, threatening and disruptive behaviour around them are also victims of the misbehaved child. I worry about some of the things my child says she has seen happen in class sometimes. But it's a joke to the parents apparently, it's the message Robinsons is sending. On the other hand, I guess it's a true reflection of some cases?!?!? Some parents do not give a monkey's about their kids' behaviour!

I'm an English and media studies teacher in a secondary school, as well as former high aspirations leader and a parent.
This is the full text of my complaint about this advert to the ASA:

As I teacher I'd like to add my disappointment at the ill judged advert where in the scenes depicted a mother and son appear to laugh about an incident of poor behaviour at school that led the teacher to phone home.
My complaint is on the following grounds:

• an unhealthy processed food product is being targeted at lower socio-economic groups judging by the representations of the mother and child. Suggesting that poor behaviour is a laughing matter places the parent and child on the opposite side from schools and education, and whilst, regrettably possibly accurate (given the amount of poor behaviour, absenteeism, in school truancy, lack of effort in class and with homework, poor attendance at parent teacher consultation evenings) based on many within this demographic, this advert reinforces a pattern that will actively inhibit social mobility and ensure that entrenched divisions within our society remain, or even widen. This runs counter to all our efforts as teachers and the huge additional money invested to try to ensure students from vulnerable and disadvantaged groups achieve on the level of their wealthier peers
• poor behaviour resulting in a busy teacher having to make a time consuming and fairly stressful phone call to parents has an impact on the rest of the class, the teacher, the parent and, most importantly the young person themselves. Had the advert shown the parent and child discussing the poor behaviour prior to sharing a moment of laughter that would be acceptable, however with only a silent car journey shown, an opportunity to show positive, constructive, communicative parenting was missed. As a parent of a 20 year old and a 22 year old, I know that unconditional love doesn't mean that you can't have tough conversations about unacceptable behaviour. In fact, proper parental love includes this moral and social guidance; the advert in question reinforces the idea that educational progress, learning and discipline are the responsibility only of school staff. For contrast I'd offer up scenes from Simon Reeve's latest series about Scandinavia where the respect and trust afforded to teachers results in wealthier, healthier, and happier societies made up of balanced, confident and self regulated individuals.
• Finally, the adverts uses and reinforces damaging gender stereotypes. Again, whilst these are recognisable and perhaps reflective of truth in many instances, advertisers have more power than they seem to realise in shaping views. In choosing a male child and female parent, whilst omitting a male parent, Robinsons may well be presenting a relatable situation (naughty boy, single mum or mother who takes a lead on domestic issues and/or a secondary bread winning role). So to present her so passively and as laughing at the poor behaviour without discussing it or sanctioning it is the worst of options. I'd argue it represents an adult female as potentially less powerful and less authoritative than a pre-teen boy, in a way that has echoes of the scene in episode three of 'Adolescence' where the boy attempts to unnerve the female psychologist. Without clearly discussing the behaviour, understanding why it was wrong and constructively looking at ways to improve it, what was the child learning about his conduct apart from that he could behave however he liked at school as there would be no consequences and it would all be just a laugh as soon as he was back at home. There are consequences, especially for boys who are underperforming in education compared to girls, and white working class boys in particular who do less well than other groups. By representing male disengagement in education as harmless, and female parents as ineffectual, Robinsons are potentially feeding the toxic masculinity of what has been called the 'manosphere' whereby boys and young men who do not have respect for school and for females adopt misogynistic viewpoints touted by the likes of Andrew Tate.

It would be great if Robinsons could not only apologise but reshoot this damaging advert to repair some of this damage.
Teacher morale and burn out due to poor behaviour is bad enough without ill thought out adverts making it worse.

It's appalling. A child needs to have done something really serious for a parent to be called to take them home. Yet this ad encourages parents to just have a laugh about it, to show their love. And tells kids that behaving so badly that they're sent home is just a laugh.

I'm amazed that this was ever passed. It's almost as if it was designed to make teachers' lives more difficult and encourage poor behaviour from children.

At a parent’s forum meeting at my DD’s school, the head told us that nearly all the parents who have to collect their children for a behavioural reason bring a Macdonalds for them. To make them feel better and in case they missed lunch when they were kicking off.

I was agog.

I bumped into a parent of a former pupil of mine when I was on a walk last week. She had moved her DCs because she wasn’t happy with how our school handled her dd’s SEN. She said her younger ds (year 5) hated his new teacher and last week, when she told him he needed to improve his attitude, he replied ‘I will when you improve your attitude’. She thought this was hilarious. Personally I wouldn’t speak like that to a pupil but I would be horrified if my dc spoke to an adult like that. She’s just another person who thinks her child can do no wrong and being disrespectful is cheeky and funny.

Makes a mockery of teachers and discipline. It’s a really stupid advert.

I just saw this advert and thought surely someone has made a thread about it and was right.
Terrible advert, summing up quite of lot of pupils and parents and unfortunately further cementing that disrespecting school authority is commonplace and acceptable.
And the amount of squash!!

Yep, really weird advert but the cherry on top was the amount of squash to water ratio, it was practically neat! When I was young they used to blame kids' behaviour on the E numbers in orange squash, maybe thats why the boy was naughty, he's getting neat squash regularly..🤔

I assumed I had missed something when I saw it but obviously not. It is not the first advert that has made me feel that companies and those they employ to promote them are in a world of their own. How could any company on seeing that advert for the first time agree it does a good job of representing them, it will make people buy their product and that their investment has been well spent.

I would feel better if there was an explanation of what he had done, and that it was very minor. As it is I agree with all the complaints.

@BlueBarb
Well it was bad enough behaviour for the child to be sent home from school, so it must have been pretty bad.

Saw the amended version of the advert last night. Still rubbish.

@Superhansrantowindsor
whats different?

At the start the mother doesn’t get a phone call. She is at end of school pick up and the teacher says there has been ‘just silly behaviour’. The rest from there is the same.

Maybe it’s the same agency that did the JL ad with the kid running riot?

I just checked with my cousin who works in advertising media. It’s not the same company that did the JL one. She said that the people at Robinson‘s told the advertising company to make it exactly how they (Robinsons) wanted. The creative people had not a lot of say in it.
She said that if it’s been amended, they must’ve had some big serious meetings about that and it would’ve cost a lot of money and that they are probably feeling quite sore about it.