Peugeot has apologised after an advert for the 207 Envy scared a fan of children’s cartoon Peppa Pig.
A complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority said the advert, which features a Peugeot 207 Envy being pushed into a swimming pool, had ‘confused and concerned’ their five-year-old son during an advert break from the popular cartoon.
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The advert shows two men discussing the new car intercut with images of the car at the bottom of a dark swimming pool and a dog barking and baring its teeth.
Designed as a ‘whodunnit’, Peugeot launched the advert with a series of clues about who has become envious enough of the new specification for the supermini to push the offending car into a suburban swimming pool.
The ASA decided the advert could ‘frighten and cause distress to younger children’ and questioned why it did not have a restriction on when it could appear.
In a statement, it said: “We concluded that an ex-kids timing restriction, which would have meant that the ad should not have been shown in or around programmes made for, or specifically targeted at, children, should have been applied to the ad."
Peugeot has apologised to the complainant and agreed the advert was inappropriate for the children’s television programme, which appeared on the Nick Jr channel at 2.15pm.
It also confirmed the advert was last shown at the end of March and would not be shown again in the UK after the campaign has run its course.
It is not the first time popular children’s character Peppa Pig has been in the news. Last year the character caused controversy when it was announced Peppa Pig images would be used to support the Labour election campaign.
However, it was later withdrawn because the creators of the cartoon did not want to be drawn into the political debate.