Elisa Menendez
THE heartbreaking story of a baby orangutan hiding in a little girl’s room has already become this year’s most talked about Christmas advert.
Since its ban the video has garnered almost 990,000 people signing a Chang.org petition to get the cartoon shown on TV.
Created by Greenpeace for supermarket giant Iceland, which has 17 franchises in Spain, the advert has caused outrage worldwide after being banned from broadcasting it on TV.
Narrated by Dame Emma Thompson, the tragic cartoon was deemed ‘too political’ by the UK advertising regulatory body, Clearcast.
Clearcast has since been forced to shut down its Facebook page after staff were ‘threatened and abused’ with their images circulating on social media over the decision.
Iceland, which has three supermarkets on the Costa del Sol, dedicated it to the ‘25 orangutans we lose every day’ due to the destruction of rainforests for palm oil.
The advert shows cute baby Rang-tan telling her friend how she ended up in the little girl’s room and shows harrowing images of machines ravaging forests and taking orangutans with them.
The supermarket chain has vowed to remove palm oil from all own brand products until producers of the oil stop devastating rainforests.
Rang-tan’s story along with the hashtags, ‘#NoPalmOilChristmas’ and ‘#SaveTheOrangutans’ have been shared by hundreds of thousands on social media.
A Clearcast spokesman insisted it is ‘not a regulator’ and has ‘no power to ban ads’, but that it was legally not able to approve the ad due to its political stance.
You can sign the petition here.
Very clever, Ban the advert and up pops a petition and everybody is talking about the advert. Now that´s marketing.