TV ad showing Santa with dementia "not too upsetting for children"

A TV campaign that shows Santa forgetting Christmas after developing dementia has been cleared by the ad watchdog following complaints it was offensive and could distress children.

The festive campaign, called Santa Forgot, was run by the charity Alzheimer’s Research UK to raise awareness of dementia and help boost donations.

The two-minute clip, narrated by Stephen Fry and animated by Aardman, the studio behind Wallace and Gromit, tells the story of a girl called Freya who asks her father about Santa, who no longer delivers presents because he has dementia.

In the ad the girl goes to the North Pole to save Father Christmas, offering support and encouraging his redundant elves to become researchers to find a way to cure the disease.

Three dozen viewers contacted the Advertising Standards Authority to complain that showing Santa having Alzheimer’s disease was offensive, could cause distress to children and questioned whether it should have been allowed to run when young viewers might see it.

Tim Parry, a director at Alzheimer’s Research UK, said the ad targeted adults and carried an “ex-kids” scheduling restriction, meaning it did not air in programmes when young children were likely to be watching.

It was only broadcast once before 7.30pm in an episode of Emmerdale on ITV because it involved a serious dementia storyline involving a main character.

Parry defended the use of such a hard-hitting strategy to get the charity’s message across to viewers.

“Our aim was to raise awareness that the diseases that cause dementia strike indiscriminately,” he said. “If we are to fight the misconceptions about dementia that still persist in society, we have to challenge them head-on.”

In its ruling, the ASA admitted that the ad might upset some viewers, with the depiction of Santa potentially likely to “cause discomfort to some younger children”.

However, the ad watchdog said the issue of dementia had been handled “sensitively” and the sad story of Santa was told in a “gentle, non-graphic way with a generally positive ending”.

The ASA’s investigation found the campaign did not breach the UK advertising code relating to harm and offence, children and scheduling.

The use of shock advertising is a common tactic used by charities to promote their cause and galvanise an often apathetic public into donating money.

A spokesman for the ASA said that the watchdog had traditionally granted more leeway to public service and charity ads in relation to UK ad code rules because of the importance of the issues about which they are trying to raise awareness.

In 2015, the ASA received 1,752 complaints about 799 ads from what it terms the “non-commercial” sector, which includes charity advertising. This is from a total of 30,000 complaints about 20,000 ads in 2015.

The ASA has previously investigated whether it was too lenient in letting charity and public service advertisers get away with shock tactics.

It moved to examine its policy after participants in a survey it conducted complained that some ads went too far with deliberately distressing content to make people feel upset or guilty, particularly those targeting children’s TV channels.

The ad watchdog’s investigation into its policy concluded that it was not being overly lenient, but it did introduce more thorough checks of charity and public service ads that receive complaints.

TV ad showing Santa with dementia "not too upsetting for children"