A GoCompare advert that likened a home insurance bill to a cash-eating monster has been banned from being aired on daytime TV, following a complaint that it allegedly encouraged a child to swallow coins.
The advert featured a woman being shocked to find a small animated monster eating the cash from her neighbour’s purse. The neighbour explained that the monster was her home insurance bill, to which the woman dramatically exclaimed, “It’s eating all your money!”
But a complainant told the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) that their four-year-old child had swallowed coins after watching the advert, and challenged whether it could encourage emulation from younger children.
As a result, the regulator has banned the advert from being broadcast before 7.30pm.
GoCompare said the advert was intended to depict the annoyance of a home insurance renewal notice in a comedic and fantastical manner, the ASA said on its website.
The comparison site said it used a fictional computer-generated character, which they called Monster Bill, to demonstrate the potential negative impact of allowing home insurance to renew without shopping around, through the eating of fake vouchers, the ASA statement said.
GoCompare told the regulator that Monster Bill was intentionally humorous and cartoon-like, and that both children and adults would understand that the character was make-believe and that the advert was intended to be comical and fantastical in nature, and therefore clearly not reflective of reality.
The firm acknowledged the complainant’s concern that their child swallowed coins after watching the advert, but highlighted that there was a difference between swallowing coins and the fictional activity undertaken by Monster Bill, which was eating fake paper vouchers.
GoCompare went on to say that they were concerned by the complainant’s experience and said they would never wish for that to happen. They said young children often placed objects in their mouths but it was very unlikely that their advert would directly or indirectly influence a child to undertake that action. It also said that while it understood Monster Bill may interest children, it was not designed with that intention.
However, the ASA upheld the compliant and said that while older children would understand that the scene depicted in the advert was surreal, younger children might not have the same understanding.
It said: “While we noted the ad did not feature children and agreed with GoCompare that the ad was not targeted at children, we considered that younger children might not appreciate the fantastical nature of the ad and might identify with the playful child-like character.
“We were concerned, therefore, that the ad might encourage young children to attempt to swallow money themselves, which was a dangerous practice to emulate. As such, while we acknowledged that the ad was suitable for older children, there was a risk that the ad would cause harm to younger children.
“We concluded that, to minimise the risk of younger children seeing it, the ad should have been given a 7.30pm timing restriction.”
