The new Christmas advert by Iceland has been banned from the TV due to being too political.
The supermarket chain teamed up with Greenpeace to make a short animated film raising awareness of the devastating impacts of palm oil on rainforests and the orangutan populations.
Iceland committed earlier this year to ban all palm oil from all its own-brand foods.
Iceland’s founder, Malcolm Walker, said: “This was a film that Greenpeace made with a voice-over by Emma Thompson.”
“We got permission to use it and take off the Greenpeace logo and use it as the Iceland Christmas ad. It would have blown the John Lewis ad out of the window. It was so emotional.”
The ad was banned by Clearcast, which is the body responsible for checking adverts before they are broadcast on television.
The Christmas advert was considered to breach the bar on political advertising because it was found to be “directed towards a political end”.
A spokesperson for Clearcast said: “Clearcast and the broadcasters have to date been unable to clear this Iceland ad because we concerned that it doesn’t comply with the political rules of the BCAP code.”
“The creative submitted to us is linked to another organisation who have not yet been able to demonstrate compliance in this area,” the spokesperson added.
Richard Walker, who is Iceland’s managing director, said: “Throughout 2018 we have led the retail industry to take action in areas such as rainforest destruction for palm oil and plastic pollution of our oceans.”
“This year we were keen to do something different with our much anticipated Christmas advert. The culmination of our palm oil project is offering our customers the choice of an orangutan friendly Christmas, and we wanted to reflect this in our advertising.”
“Whilst our advert sadly never made it to TV screens, we are hopeful that consumers will take to social media to view the film, which raises awareness of an important global issue.”