Poundland’s bad elf adverts banned

Poundland’s controversial “Elf Behaving Badly” advertising campaign featuring a child’s toy elf in a series of sexualised poses has been banned for being irresponsible and likely to cause widespread offence.

The Christmas campaign on the retailer’s Twitter and Facebook pages, which helped the business to achieve its most successful December since it started trading in 1990, included images of the elf playing strip poker and sitting in a tub with naked dolls.

During the December campaign, tea company Twinings accused Poundland of “misusing” its product. The retailer had tweeted an image of an elf dangling a Twinings teabag over a female doll in a simulation of a sex act. The tweet was accompanied by the caption: “How do you take your tea? One lump or two?”

Another ad on 20 December showed the elf playing a game of strip poker with three unclothed dolls with the caption: “Joker, joker. I really want to poker.”

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) received 85 complaints accusing the ads of being offensive for their depiction of toy characters and other items in a sexualised manner and were unsuitable to appear where children could see them. Poundland said the double entendres used would not have been understood by children, adding Twitter and Facebook had policies preventing under-13s from creating accounts.