A £6m government ad warning about climate change is to be investigated by watchdogs over claims it is misleading and too "scary" for children. The Advertising Standards Authority has received 357 complaints about the Department of Energy and Climate Change's "bedtime stories" ad.
The ad aims to make adults feel guilty about the impact their carbon emissions are having on their children's future. It is being used to promote DECC's Act on CO2 carbon reduction initiative.
The minute-long ad, which launched on 9 October, features a father telling his daughter a bedtime story about "a very very strange" world with "horrible consequences" for children.
It then goes on to show streets and houses underwater, with cartoon animals and people drowning and a jagged-tooth monster in the sky, representing global warming.
It also includes scientific claims including the line: "The grown-ups discovered that over 40% of the CO2 comes from everyday things like keeping houses warm and driving cars." The government has already been prevented from screening the ad during children's programmes.
But the ASA has still received complaints from parents saying it is too frightening, although most complainants questioned the scientific basis of the claim that climate change is man-made. An ASA spokeswoman said: "It is not just about the issue of climate change in this particular case. We have had a huge number of complaints about the science but also whether the ad itself is scary for children."
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