to think that Littlewoods advert should be banned?

[CherylWillBounceBack]

Shameful for all the reasons below:

a) Ruins Christmas by exposing the truth about Santa's existence.
b) Encourages debt fuelled consumerism (easy payments)
c) could pressurise people out of guilt to spend more than they can afford
d) Attempts to make presents which are ridiculously look like the norm
e) Suggests that we should pass our hard earned up a generation by putting laptops on the knees of grandparents. Rich old people can buy their own electronic tat if they so choose.
f) annoying tune that gets stuck in the head.

I bloody hate that ad.

I wasn't asking about your drinking habits.

the Littlewoods website actually offers 3 months interest free credit which can be a real help to families who can't afford the whole amount up front, but who can mange 3 payments. This way, DD will get the camera she wants for her 21st birthday and I can see the joy on her face knowing I can manage 3 smaller chunks of money.

It works out to be the same as paying interest if they mark up the price though.

I can understand your position dementedma, but even if you can pay for the camera within 3 months, buying it from Littlewoods is still costing you money. Littlewoods seem to charge more than many other retailers. Eg. the Fujifilm FinePix AV200 Digital Camera is £69 on the Littlewoods website and only £51 on Amazon (and I am sure there are even cheaper retailers). Their XBOX 360 250Gb Console costs £249 and is only £189 on Amazon. For a service targeted at harder-up families, their prices seem high to me.

Comparing to Amazon is not really fair.
Just looked up the camera on Argos and it was 69.99 but they have a save £10 offer.

I agree with you OP, YADefNBU!

Keep fighting the good fight everyone - it's wonderful and heartening to read that so many people are against avarice being masqueraded as advertising. With all that's going on in the world, it's good to see a rally call against usury like this.

Now if I could just get the damn song out of my head....

Try these lyrics instead:

Who ran up bills that we couldn't pay?
And put us in debt until May?
And so caused a row on Christmas Day?
My muvver

Yanbu, that advert makes me want to throw things at the tv!

I hate this advert with a passion...my children believe in father christmas and i want them to continue to believe in him, can children not be children and have a little bit of magic in their lives?

oh and YANBU!!

come on you guys if your kids really love you they wont expect more than the lists they give to you hee hee. As for santa you can blagg that one through I have and I have 3 kids the last one who has only just stopped believing and she is 11. When i told them the tooth fairy didin't exist, only through my own error, now that hurt... Marketing is a big thing in the up coming years so i suppose just get used to it.

Phones and laptops for presents?! Seems rather excessive IMO

I don't watch tv anymore so have not seen this, or any other ad in about a year.

My life is so much happier than it was before.

(this is not a joke either, it's brilliant, try it! - I still watch films on the Dvd but tv and radio were making me sick, quite literally, now I just have to quash my internet addiction and I reckon family life will be heavenly).

really all this outrage over an advert on tv?!! i dont get, it, tbh i thought the little boy in the spider? costume was quite sweet, he looked cute, but it wont make me buy from littlewoods or spend money i dont have on presents.

my kids know that father christmas delivers presents and fills their stocking but that the big presents are from mum/dad, relatives etc and they also know that they wont get something if we cant afford it/dont think its suitable so my 12yr old WONT be getting the ipad touch that we A, cant afford and B he doesnt need and it wouldt only get broken/lost/stolen at school. he will suck it up and be happy with what he gets tho.

children can be influenced by adverts but we as parents can educate them as well, my own 9yr old saw an advert for hex bug nanos the other day, which he likes but even he commented that they are overpriced for what they are and woudl probably get lost/broken easily so he now doesnt want them.

my 3 yr old wants a lotso bear tho and the particular one that he wants is now out of stock in the uk so ihave managed to get a relative to get him one in the US and send it over, bizarelly its actually working out cheaper! other than that he hasnt asked for anything but his little face saying 'father missmass will bring me a lotso bear' would make me move hell and earth to get him one, sucker that i am!

ultimately my kids will be happy if there dad doesnt have to work christmas day, cant see that happening tho.

you can turn a tv off, record stuff and fastworward through an advert, or watch another channel.

I was the first person who complained on their FB page about the advert - I hadn't realised it had received so many complaints ! The funniest thing is that I said nothing about Santa ! Will try and find my post

I agree that this advert is awful for many of the reasons people have already said:

The gifts are all ridiculously expensive
...but it's ok if we can't afford them ? we should just get into crippling debt
Santa's out the window
My mum is "lovely" only because she bought all this stuff. I know we live in consumerist times, but do we need to revel in it!

In fact, it's made me so mad that I've voted for it as the Worst Christmas advert. Maybe if enough of us do, Littlewoods will realise they've scored a massive own goal and pull it?

All together now

Who found saving kind of hard
Who went mad with the credit card
Who's got bailiffs in the yard
My mother

Who went on a shopping spree
Who do the creditors want to see
Who's down hiding behind the settee
My lovely lovely mother

You can't use MN to advertise like this I'm afraid.