We live in a world with little hope, though one day of the year that remains relentlessly optimistic is Christmas Day. It’s the day in which we see the world through the eyes of our children, who are filled with a mixture of wonder and excitement at the thought of a fat man abseiling down their chimney in order to stuff overpriced technology beneath their Christmas tree because kids play with iPhones these days, not action figures.
However, PayPal have seemingly gone out of their way to ruin Christmas for a few parents in the UK this year, or at the very least cause them to have a very long conversation with their offspring. The commercial, which was aired during the X Factor ad break over the weekend, implies that Santa Claus is not real, which is a big no-no for a commercial played prior to the 9pm watershed.
This means that when parents sat down to watch the latest batch of porcelain faced wannabe superstars bow beneath Simon Cowell and Those Other Three who make up the X Factor panel, they were then forced to witness their children suffer an existential crisis as they were hit with the realization that maybe it won’t be some bright red obese bloke buying them a PS4, but rather their mommy and daddy.
The offending commercial is below, which led to more than 230 advertising complaints being made to the Advertising Standards Authority:
Keep in mind that no one complains to the advertising standards in the UK aside from bigots who occasionally get riled up when a company dares to portray homosexual or mixed race relationships, so it seems that there were a lot of angry parents who had to explain to their children that, actually, Santa now transfers his money into their current accounts in order for them to pay for presents via PayPal. It’s 2015, kids – get with the times!
PayPal tried to cover their tracks, releasing the following statement: “Our ad aims to take a fun look at those Christmas presents kids know come from their parents, and not in any way say Father Christmas doesn’t also deliver presents to them.”
The company also stated that they would now only play the ad after 9pm.
