To feel vindicated that John Lewis has pulled its awful ad with the boy in the dress trashing the house?

[Clymene]

I wrote to the ASA and complained. I said the ad was misleading (as into insurance will cover wilful damage), sexist (with a boy rampaging through the house and destroying his mother and sister's things, and sexualised.

I also called John Lewis and told them I hated it and why.

They've withdrawn it.

GOOD

‘Is a trading name of John Lewis PLC’

The problem JL faced is that even as an insurance intermediary the FCA rule on customer communications being clear, fair and not misleading apply. Whilst customers might not suffer harm if JL stops selling insurance they have potentially been mislead as to the nature of the cover they have received and suffer a loss because of that. The FCA is very aware of the structural imbalance in knowledge and bargaining power between customers and financial services firms so places strict requirements on communications and promotions.

I’m not saying that the FCA shouldn’t have stepped in - they do regulate JL who do sell financial services. I’m just saying that I don’t think they will regard it as their responsibility to go any further.

Personally I’m more worried about the implication of Barclay’s recent Pride campaign which very much told customers and staff that they shouldn’t ask questions if they didn’t understand something.

That is a corporate culture that could really do harm. I think JL are more removed from the products themselves.

ChazsBrilliantAttitude thank you for your eloquent explanation.

merrymouse the same obligation would apply to Covea who should have oversight of JL promotional material. Covea will either not have reviewed the ad (

Their product has received more publicity than they could possibly have dreamed of

@TirednWorried

Their product has received more publicity than they could possibly have dreamed of

Have you read the entire thread? We've established JL have gone too far this time and fucked off their customers with this ad, I will not on principle shop there again, they can get stuffed...any publicity is good publicity doesn’t work in this case, not when a child is used in a sexulized advert to appease the woke mob..

Top level marketing, everybody now knows John Lewis do insurance and it's hardly costing them a penny.

@Bazinga007

Top level marketing, everybody now knows John Lewis do insurance and it's hardly costing them a penny.

They still had to pay fir the ad. They have to contact all new customers since the ad to explain the ad was misleading.

They might get an FCA fine.

They look like idiots, untrustworthy and certainly not in keeping with their usual brand image.

I would say that if you are advertising your insurance products your ‘top level marketing’ requirement would indeed be integrity, honesty and customer service.

What do you think is the over riding take away from this negative publicity?

I think you went for what you thought was a one line quip, but it shows an adherence to ‘all PR is good PR’ bollocks. I can list you cases where this is certainly not true and took years for brands to recover.

And that is not even covering the sexualisation of a child issue. That is just dealing with the dishonesty issue.

That was to Bazinga.

Hardly costing them a penny? I doubt one of the most sought after directors (despite what he is done to this as) was ‘cheap’ either. They called in that director to create an ad that would go viral. Well it did. For the wrong reason and that information now lives forever on the internet and will be studied as a failure case study.

It will cost them significant investment to recover and it will take a long time unless they come up with a magic pill.

The costs of contacting the affected customers will not be insignificant. They will probably have to ring fence a team. They will need to have a script, escalation processes, complaints procedure etc etc. Plus all the management time which will already have been used on this disaster so all the opportunity cost of the stuff they should have been doing. Unplanned work like this in a competitive business is a nightmare.

@Bazinga007

Top level marketing, everybody now knows John Lewis do insurance and it's hardly costing them a penny.

Top level marketing?

John Lewis, we guarantee not to pay.

This may not be the Brand Recognition they were looking for.

As I understand before they issued the statement below their twitter account told people that non-accidental damage was covered?

They have an official FCA warning on the website, and have to pull a team together to manage the direct fallout from that.

That official statement was from the Board.
Resolution is from board downward, the most senior management are working on a failed ad not future planning.

The company's marketing has shown, to the FCS regulator, that they don't understand the basics of selling this product. Note they also sell other insurance products.

Note the change in tone pre and post FCA contact.

mobile.twitter.com/johnlewisretail/status/1448673189740138502

They carry the FCA brand.

The FCA brand has also been tarnished in a very public way by this top level marketing.

They are small fish in a big pond but if anything else goes "tits up" in the future guess who else get blamed for not doing their job?

The FCA are very brand conscious and will be watching and reading about their name being published in the media.

That ad will cost JL and as merrymouse pointed out the reputation risk effects their suppliers too.

@Bazinga007

Top level marketing, everybody now knows John Lewis do insurance and it's hardly costing them a penny.

It’s really not. It’s poor level marketing.

The agency will know they’ve failed as will JL

Getting an ad pulled is not successful

See, I liked that advert became I love that song and liked the interior of the house. I didn’t make any other connections. There are far worse ads IMO . The Love honey one makes me cringe.

I actually thought the ad for JL interiors. Ads are wasted on me as I don’t tend to pay much attention unless, as with this one, I like the music or imagery.

I didn’t make any other connections.

May I suggest you go back and look again with eyes that now know that the FCA ruling has been made. Maybe you will understand the ad more now you have a deeper knowledge than your previous superficial view of it (and to be fair, most ad are filtered just this way these days unless they have that viral following, which is what the intention here was).

You mention Love Honey ads on a thread describing the sexualisation of a child. Eerrmmm? Really?

@Benjispruce5

I actually thought the ad for JL interiors. Ads are wasted on me as I don’t tend to pay much attention unless, as with this one, I like the music or imagery.

You liked the imagery of a child being portrayed this way? Did you actually look at the ad?

What??? I mentioned love honey as an ad that I found a bit unnecessary, purely off the top of my head. A boy in a dress is not sexualisation to me, it’s a boy playing.

I said I only knew of the ad became the song caught my attention as I love Stevie Nicks, then I saw the nice interior and looked at the sofas etc. The boy got in the way tbh.

Because not became

@Helleofabore

That was to Bazinga.

Hardly costing them a penny? I doubt one of the most sought after directors (despite what he is done to this as) was ‘cheap’ either. They called in that director to create an ad that would go viral. Well it did. For the wrong reason and that information now lives forever on the internet and will be studied as a failure case study.

It will cost them significant investment to recover and it will take a long time unless they come up with a magic pill.

Interesting point

Using it in inhouse training for insurance marketing teams will be inevitable.

Most media reports politely ignore the trans element and described it as "the boy in dress sexist ad".

I have seen a viral of it being used as an ad for Durex condoms.
(100% effective too )

You misunderstand, my comment has nothing at all to do with what the boy is wearing. That is a great outfit.

It is how that boy is acting all the way through. The pouts, the struts, the trailing fingers along balustrades, the dancing against the wall.

What child does that naturally? Maybe you need to actually look at the ad with more than a cursory view.

The boy is dressing up, so what? If he was in a cowboy outfit and acting like a cowboy, would that be ok?

I have seen a viral of it being used as an ad for Durex condoms.

Yes. I sure the humour but it was wrong to relabel it with the original actors in the ad still. That made it even more explicitly sexualising this child.

Better would be to have an adult doing exactly the same for the Durex version. The internet now has used this boy for advertising condoms…