You may have seen someone share the new Christmas advertisement video by Iceland (the British frozen foods supermarket chain; not the Nordic island).
Unlike the sole call-to-action for any video shared on a social media platform (the call-to-action, first, is usually, ‘play’ the video!), in this case, the most pressing call-to-action was ‘share this because it has been banned’!
The motivation works like, ‘How dare they ban this, let me share it and add some views and show them!’.
Even the YouTube title of the video in the official Iceland channel says, “Iceland’s Banned TV Christmas Advert… Say hello to Rang-tan”!
The description says,
“You won’t see our Christmas advert on TV this year.
But we want to share our ‘No Palm Oil’ story with you this Christmas.
Say hello to Rang-tan.”
As of today, it has over 3.7 million views on YouTube and a LOT of shares on every other social media platform. Interestingly, the video was not even made for Iceland! It was made by Greenpeace and was released in August 2018!
And, technically, the advertisement was not ‘banned’ by any official TV regulatory body. Clearcast, that stopped the ad from being aired, is not a regulator. It’s a business that clears ads on behalf of the UK’s four major commercial broadcasters. Clearcast simply followed the broadcasting code that says, “An advertisement contravenes the prohibition on political advertising if it is an advertisement which is inserted by or on behalf of a body whose objects are wholly or mainly of a political nature”.
Taken together with the fact that the advertisement was nothing but a rebadged version of Greenpeace’s earlier video, it looks like Iceland has smartly scored a fantastic PR/viral hit this Christmas, riding on a cause.
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