UK British retailer M&S pulls Christmas advert post after Palestinian flag criticism

M&S has apologised after being accused of posting an Instagram photo of Christmas party hats in the colours of the Palestinian flag on fire.

The image, an out-take from one of the company's TV adverts, showed red, green and silver hats burning in a fireplace.



M&S said the intent was to "playfully show that some people don't enjoy wearing paper Christmas hats".

The company removed the photo and said the advert was filmed in August, before the latest Israel-Gaza conflict began.

It said the hats were "traditional, festive coloured red, green and silver Christmas paper hats".

"We have removed the post following feedback and we apologise for any unintentional hurt caused," M&S added in a statement posted to X, formerly known as Twitter, on Wednesday night.

The photo was an out-take from the company's Christmas clothing and home advert, which is based on the premise that people should do away with Christmas traditions they no longer love.

The picture drew criticism from several social media users who claimed there was a similarity between the colours of the hats and the Palestinian flag, with one user describing the photo as "distasteful".

The company has also been defended by other social media users who said the hats are in traditional Christmas colours.

Queer Eye presenter Tan France, who appears in the advert, said on Instagram: "The ad was shot in August, so maybe you're reaching with your ridiculous comments."

The Advertising Standards Authority, which regulates advertising in the UK, says it has received 40 complaints about the Instagram post.

The regulator says it is reviewing the complaints to determine whether further action is needed, but is not currently investigating the advert.

Releasing the "Love Thismas not Thatmas" advert earlier this week, M&S said it was intended to "celebrate and empower our customers to just do the things they love".

The advert also features actors Zawe Ashton and Hannah Waddingham, and singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor.

More than 1,400 people were killed in attacks by Hamas on Israel on 7 October, while at least 239 people were taken hostage.

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says more than 9,000 people have been killed since Israel launched air strikes as part of a military response to the attacks.

BBC News

 

[Your Starter for 10]

Hopefully this irritates the mobs enough to burn their stores down. I love that this environmental virtue signalling faggotry over reeeeeee paper crowns is going to get someone killed or at least fired. Well, by love, I mean pray.

 

[ConsentAccidentVictimNo98]

It ain't our fault the Palestinians stole the traditional christmas colours. Fuck rules for us but not for them.

 

[Quote Cursor]

I love the double edge sword of social media marketing, which is attracting the terminally online politics crowd that accuses you of dogwhistling or other lunacy. (Although the same crowd seems to be very keen on dogwhistles and weird symbols that's on FBI lists or mental illness e.t.c.)

 

[moms sock drawer]

 

[Stephanie Bustcakes]

Considering red, green, and white are the traditional Christmas colors that will surely be used in many advertisements for the next three months, I can't wait to see this happen over and over again. The only thing that companies can do to avoid accidentally offending people is to not use the Christmas colors in their Christmas advertisements.

 

[Vect]

40 absolute wastes of oxygen complained and this millions dollar company pulls an ad that nobody who has a positive IQ score would have a problem with.

You'd think that if companies have all this power and influence that their PR reps would have the backbone to say "no, it's not political, you're just retarded."

 

[David Brown]

Am I going crazy or does that image of the fireplace with the hats look machine learning generated? I can't parse out the details in it, maybe I'm schizophrenic now

 

[Whoopsie Daisy]

This isn't just anti-Islamic content, this is M&S anti-Islamic content.

 

[Otoya Yamaguchi]

Imagine apologizing to placate edomites. Holy shit miss me with that gay shit lol

 

[Otoya Yamaguchi]

40 absolute wastes of oxygen complained and this millions dollar company pulls an ad that nobody who has a positive IQ score would have a problem with.

You'd think that if companies have all this power and influence that their PR reps would have the backbone to say "no, it's not political, you're just retarded."

Somewhere in recent history, companies stopped put smart people at the helm and started putting women and retards in instead.

See: bud light.

 

[TowinKarz]

40 absolute wastes of oxygen complained and this millions dollar company pulls an ad that nobody who has a positive IQ score would have a problem with.

You'd think that if companies have all this power and influence that their PR reps would have the backbone to say "no, it's not political, you're just retarded."

They used to do that, before being nice to the tards became a part of your DEI score.

 

[Starved Artist]

Somewhere in recent history, companies stopped put smart people at the helm and started putting women and retards in instead.

See: bud light.

Bud light is a controlled collapse.
If the shareholders pulled out "without a reason", they could be sued for insider training.

The entire thing was manipulated to give the share holders more options to move things around. All of the secondary companies under Bud Light, despite this alleged turmoil are all back to their pre-pandemic 2021 status. Remember, all gains during the height of the pandemic were extremely boosted due to people having nothing to do but sit around drink all day. Now that people aren't doing that, those gains are completely non-sustainable.

Anyway, Budlight has the illusion of collapse when in reality, they just made their return to normal look like a catastrophic failure, which scared away a lot of investors, leaving more of the ones who arranged it. Bud is one of those companies you never sell on, but if you want more of those stocks, you gotta convince someone else to sell and what better way than arranging a tranny apocalypse? And not even using a random tranny, no no no. They had to use one of the richest trannies on the fucking planet.

 

[indigoisviolet]

Well... in the next advert they could throw a Jew onto the fire, to balance things out?

 

[Vesperus]

Oh fuck off you thin-skinned retards.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

They tried an attack on Christmas because it's a safe target and got cancelled because of a misunderstanding lol fuck these faggots

 

[Safir]

M&S said the intent was to "playfully show that some people don't enjoy wearing paper Christmas hats".

These are bugmen. The people "who don't enjoy wearing paper Christmas hats" (what an oddly specific fixation) just don't make any.

 

[Help I'm A BritFag]

Of course it's a British supermarket with this pathetic pandering lunacy, it's like the time Sainsbury's had to change the name of their Chicken Kiev to Chicken Kyiv because "Kiev" is the Russian spelling and some lefty spastics on Twitter claimed that that meant they were "siding with Russia against Ukraine!" by using that spelling. It boggles my mind how multi-billion pound businesses are terrified of the opinions of a few dozen screeching retards on Twitter to the point where they will bend over backwards to appease them.

 

[Starved Artist]

Of course it's a British supermarket with this pathetic pandering lunacy, it's like the time Sainsbury's had to change the name of their Chicken Kiev to Chicken Kyiv because "Kiev" is the Russian spelling and some lefty spastics on Twitter claimed that that meant they were "siding with Russia against Ukraine!" by using that spelling. It boggles my mind how multi-billion pound businesses are terrified of the opinions of a few dozen screeching retards on Twitter to the point where they will bend over backwards to appease them.

Caving to a small change, gives the illusion of compassion and understanding.

Non marketing people don't understand how to play the game with no rules. People too controlled by left/right politics will always screw themselves over if you escalate/descalate properly.