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.

I've just looked at their website. Accidental damage (which this ad is supposedly selling) is an add on to their standard contents insurance. It says on the website (not the policy small print, just the hook in blurb):

Does Accidental Damage Insurance cover damage caused by children?
Yes – happily, with these add-ons you're covered for anything accidentally damaged or broken by your children or their playmates. This includes spills on the carpet or sofa and broken chairs or mirrors – although we cannot guarantee you against the associated seven years of bad luck!

The key is how they define "accident" in the policy and whether it varies from the ordinary dictionary definition, i.e., an unforeseen event or one without an apparent cause; anything that occurs unintentionally or by chance; a misfortune or mishap

Of course, JL and their advertisers might want potential purchasers to believe that lovely, fluffy, family friendly JL will cover the sort of scenario set out in the ad. However, it's not going to be lovely JL's policy, is it? They will be just a front/representative for a bog standard commercial insurance broker, whose assessors would rather pull their own teeth out than pay out.

If your kid is behaving like the kid in the ad while you look on doing nothing to prevent any of it, that doesn't seem to fit with the dictionary definition of "accident". If JL don't in fact pay out in this scenario, and that's clear in the policy small print, then that is going to be on the idiot who bought the insurance without reading it.

However, I do wonder if it breaches advertising standards. You can have exaggerated advertising, described by the Advertising Standards Authority as, "Obvious exaggerations ("puffery") and claims that the average consumer who sees the advertisement is unlikely to take literally are allowed provided they do not materially mislead.".That will be like the "Redbull gives you wings" type advertising. With this JL ad though.... I'm not so sure, actually. It's showing a very specific scenario, or sequence of events, and claiming the insurance covers it. Your "average consumer" includes many parents of all our acquaintance who think their very free spirited/natural born leader/ whatever excuse child can do whatever the hell they like while they look on and smile indulgently. Are they being misled by false advertising?

Isn't this ad just encouraging insurance fraud? I have known people (nice, middle class people) who have left their child alone with a sharpie and a sofa they want replacing, and have managed to make a one off fraudulent insurance claim. Every one of the incidences in that ad, all deliberate, all totally preventable and carried out while an adult watches them do it, is a fraudulent insurance claim in the making. Nice messaging to those inclined to criminal thinking, crap one to the rest of us watching our premiums rocket as a result.

Haven’t been on Mumsnet for a long time, it’s become way too «woke»
I would say that JL is chasing every kind of market as they are struggling financially.
If their Home Insurance video goes viral and targets new gender inclusive clients, then the advert has worked. If they manage to sell some more home insurance then bonus pints.

I'd go fucking MENTAL if one of my kids put my clothes and makeup on, trailed greasy lipstick all over the banister and walls, ruined my other child's quiet play, smashed some of my stuff up, then stood on the table flinging paint covered glitter into the air. It just wouldn't fly. Really, it wouldn't happen. Actually, they wouldn't have got past the bottom step.

And home insurance will never cover incidences of kids acting like little shits and wilfully damaging the house. It's not exactly accidental, is it??

Yep @WorriedWishingWell, I thought @SirChenjins made a great point too. Cannot understand what was unacceptable about it???

Wilful damage by family members or anyone lawfully in your home is specifically excluded on the JL home policy, so that advert is deliberately misleading.

Well I've just spoken to a very nice lady who confirmed that JL do class children's damage as accidental damage, even though I pointed out that the boy's damage was deliberate rather than accidental.

She asked me what I thought of the ad and I told her I thought it was awful, that he was deliberately trashing his sister's stuff and that it was bizarre that the mum was just sitting there placidly watching him wreck the house. She laughed and agreed with me.

If i lived in a massive show home
Like that one, id be nervous of that little shit 'living life' indoors.

I've now filled out an application to get a quote and read the policy document for additional accidental damage cover.

It excludes:

'China, glass, pottery and any other similar items of a fragile nature'

And

'This doesn’t cover loss or damage caused by malicious acts or vandalism in the following circumstances:
• While your home is unoccupied
• When your home is lent, let or sublet to anyone other than your family – unless force or violence has been used to get into or out of your home
• Caused by you, your family, your domestic staff, lodgers, paying guests or tenants, and any person that you or your family has allowed into the home'

So actually it looks like it specifically excludes the sort of damage their ad shows.

I shall be complaining to the ASA.

@AmandaHoldensLips

I thought it was advertising insurance coverage for male narcissism.

No premium would ever be enough to cover that.

What a terrible advert. A little shit of a kid trashing the place while his sister and mum look on and do nothing but hey it is all ok because he is 'letting life happen' and John Lewis will apparently pay for all the mindless damage. This is the worst ad I think I've seen. Absolute disgrace.

@Clymene

Well I've just spoken to a very nice lady who confirmed that JL do class children's damage as accidental damage, even though I pointed out that the boy's damage was deliberate rather than accidental.

She asked me what I thought of the ad and I told her I thought it was awful, that he was deliberately trashing his sister's stuff and that it was bizarre that the mum was just sitting there placidly watching him wreck the house. She laughed and agreed with me.

Will it also include the sister's therapy fees in adulthood when she realises she was raised in a family where her brother was a bully and the mother failed to do anything to protect her?

@DrBlackbird

The fact that the original ad had a young girl dancing (who was also subtly sexualised with references to Flash dance) in her home makes this one worse IMO.

I’m picturing the ad firm luvvies going "OMG, we’ll be so on trend if we just reverse the sexes of the child of our last ad and ramp up the chaos!’…No thought at all to wider implications to a message about female passivity in the face of destruction…

No, just utterly and completely cynical and exploitative of young children’s play. As well as boring and unimaginative. Bad timing for them and JL in light of the growing anger about the treatment of women and girls caught in an onslaught of misogyny.

Indeed.

The first ad, which I've just seen, is also exploitative, in my opinion.

Young girls do go all sexy drama sometimes. But it's context which is important.

Our current climate is sexualising children younger and younger. And there are certain people who are desperate to normalise it. I really don't want John Lewis to subliminally insert that into an advert.

Not to mention the pass that the boy gets given for wanton destruction, bullying his sister, and JL portraying their mum as a helpless bystander in the face of his admirable flamboyance.

JL are known for their adverts. It forms a part of their USP. They have a social responsibility.

And of course, that boy looked like Desmond is Amazing.

Pouting, strutting, diva.

And I totally understand why people like it. The sexualisation of children is being held up as as cute and funny. That's what normalisation is.

If you're watching that ad and admiring it and thinking how fun it is, then that normalisation is working.

@RowanMumsnet care to share any @SirChenjins post was deleted?

I'm going to complain to JL and I hope lots of other people will as well. We can't change society by doing nothing.

To me it seemed like an updated version of "boys will be boys", it's just this one had raided his mum's stuff rather than been out playing football. If they want to break stereotypes, perhaps next time they could have a girl kicking a ball around & targeting the windows. That would be less gender-conforming than having a boy randomly trashing stuff! Also slightly more likely to be claimable on insurance!

Irrespective of the boy dressing up and whatever agenda that is playing to, I'm not a fan of the ad. He is being a badly behaved spolit brat and I think most parents would take a dim view of his wilful damage and bad behaviour.
What on earth are JL doing? Seems like this ad has been produced by a 22 year old with no understanding of the JL target audience.

Also, what kind of message is 'let your kids trash the house and claim on insurance?' Increased claims put everyone's premiums up!

Dreadful.

Oh, & that child did not look like he was enjoying any of it!

That is a fucking awful advert

I wonder if John Lewis are aware of 10 year old Desmond is Amazing. Who posed in a sexy pic, with a naked man, and twerked in a gay club while men threw money at him.

Or that nine-year-old boy drag queen, Queen Lactatia. Who said if your parents don't agree with drag, get new parents, to much adult laughter.

I can't think this advert would have happened in that much of a vacuum. Surely, if you're thinking along the lines of a boy dressing up in women's clothes and strutting about, the first thing you would do is Google it.

It is the posing and pouting that I find disturbing.

The ad has just popped up on my Insta feed in truncated form, he's just chucking the umbrella and tipping the paint on the floor. Half the comments are just horrified at a boy in a dress and the other half are congratulating JL for being so progressive. It's predictably awful.

@PitchImperfect

To me it seemed like an updated version of "boys will be boys", it's just this one had raided his mum's stuff rather than been out playing football. If they want to break stereotypes, perhaps next time they could have a girl kicking a ball around & targeting the windows. That would be less gender-conforming than having a boy randomly trashing stuff! Also slightly more likely to be claimable on insurance!

Indeed. Showing a boy disregarding everyone in his house, doing exactly what he wants, breaking stuff, bullying his sister, and ignoring his mother, is hardly what I would call busting gender stereotypes.

And getting away with it because he's wearing a dress?

The very reason why this board exists is directly due to the prevalence of that narrative.

Gender non conforming, fine. Behaving like a shit trashing everything in your wake on purpose while the females look on in silence and no one puts a stop to it because yay glitter - well....

That's all I'll say about that.

Boys can do what they like, with impunity, as long as they're dressed as girls.

Seems consistent with the party line of today.

I've complained to JL saying that it's fine for a boy to wear a dress but when you combine that with over the top make up, pouting and sexualised poses it is sexualising a young child.

It is also reinforcing harmful stereotypes of "boys will be boys" I.e. violent, bullying and antisocial while the woman amd girl look on quietly (too scared to react?). How misogynistic.

It is also misleading as PP have said, deliberate damage isn't included in their home insurance cover.

Why on earth would a respectable brand like JL want to be associated with sexualising children, misogyny and misleading their customers?