John Lewis and it’s ‘gender relaxed’ ad

[SouthernFashionista]

Curious to hear thoughts on the new ad from John Lewis. It strikes me as sinister. Why does a small child have to send out a message of LGBTQ equality? Why is he acting like a drag queen.

All shops put the same type of articles together. Do you go into Waterstone's and complain that military history and art and design and fashion are in separate categories rather than simply alphabetical by author?

Why, in Smyths anyway, are the Lego Friends and Lego Elves sets in the pink aisles and not in the Lego aisle? Surely Lego should be grouped with Lego? And not Lego and girl toy Lego?

@KimikosNightmare, I think the largest category of complaint will be on the grounds of misrepresentation of the accidental damage policy; followed closely behind by the images of the wilful damage themselves, the sexist stereotyping, and the advert's reliance on those stereotypes to shock, bedazzle and force a misleading point about an insurance policy onto the viewer.

Advertisers are allowed to challenge and even shock viewers, but not if they're doing it to disguise a form of mis-selling.

Re the JL ad, there will be some complaints I expect focusing on the angles of the sexualisation of a child and exploitation of a child actor - but I bet there are hardly any complaining per se about a boy wearing a dress.

Here's one from 2010.

Cloying sentiment, yes. But at least it's trying to reach its target demographic.

And there was the tiny dancer, which has a sweet character and a bit of a narrative and is truly accidental damage:

The destructo-boy one is just ... it's just fucking miserable and desperate and has the stench of despair about it. In 2021 John Lewis have skipped the soft and mushy angle and gone for outright hatred of their target audience. Really odd.

Just wanted to share this for us to reminisce about the days when companies knew what a woman was and how to appeal to us.

Sorry ArabellaScott just realised you linked to it too. Went down a bit of a rabbit hole and have just resurfaced.

My first observation is that the advert is clearly targeting wealthy, educated middle class crowd.
My second thought is that big brands care about what's trendy and brings in money above all else.
Good acting skills on behalf of the kids and I hope the little boy doesn't receive any negative backlash, he did a great job.
I'm glad I don't have a TV in my home anymore with the constant advert bombardment.

Tbh I tend to tape things then watch them and fast forward the adverts and the first 2 mins of the programme following the adverts as they seem to think we have such bad memories that we have forgotten everything that happened so far in the programme.

Aaaand, the advert has been withdrawn as the FCA said it was misleading....

twitter.com/JohnLewisRetail/status/1453345847194918913?t=sWOpIynsmD8l63XwbGIOiA&s=19

Presumably the confusion arose because what JL still describe as accidental was very clearly deliberate.

That is good news... but not necessarily for all the right reasons. But still...

It’s chilling and instructive that many people must have approved the ad before broadcast.

Presumably the confusion arose because what JL still describe as accidental was very clearly deliberate.

As multiple people pointed out, including to JL themselves!

This week's Private Eye...

I their statement they say this was supposed to be a 'joyful depiction'.

I really didn't see 'joyful'. It felt angry and a bit aggressive.

Maybe the director misdirected the young actor, or the actor didn't quite nail the joyful bit. But I'm assuming the JL marketing team signed it off so perhaps their interpretation of joyful is different to others.

Yep. And the consequences of his actions were in now way unintentional. He was revelling in the destruction he was causing.

I am really surprised no one picked up on what the advert actually depicted Vs what they were aiming for.

Oh... I don't know. That cartoon looks pretty joyful above.

Interesting that this has been pulled by the FCA, I wonder if the ASA will make comment on the other aspects of the advert.

Some of the comments on Facebook are terrifyingly obtuse.

@Campervan69

Just wanted to share this for us to reminisce about the days when companies knew what a woman was and how to appeal to us.

Watching this have me goosebumps. They just wouldn't be allowed to get away with that now would they?

That is good news... but not necessarily for all the right reasons. But still

JL's management are not stupid, and at least this will teach them to scrutinise more closely what advertising agencies propose as opposed to giving them free rein. The agencies may be working to agendas which may be very different to those of the companies who employ them. It would be desirable that other businesses got the message also

That was a great ad.

They were selling a financial product and the ad took them into mis-selling territory. Which a number of us pointed out when the ad first ran, and it was pretty stupid of them. Additional rules apply when advertising financial products (rules which are designed to protect consumers), but they brushed this off.
Even their latest statement fudges things a bit.
I did notice that they’d already started to run a shorter version of the ad on TV, which omitted some of the more gratuitous destruction and some of the aggression towards the sister. I wondered whether they’d realised that some of this didn’t look good. But then again it may just have been a shorter version.

@merrymouse

It’s chilling and instructive that many people must have approved the ad before broadcast.

Indeed - this is what happens when Virtue Signalling is prioritised. No one who signed off on it appears to have asked the question "would this, in fact, be covered?"

Does this mean that I can’t have a cup of tea and just watch when my children are trashing the place? Safe in the knowledge that JL insurance will pay?

Gutted.

I wonder what their Christmas ad will be? I assume it’s being frantically reviewed right now...