...
exactly 100 years ago this Christmas, the British troops, worn and
weary in their midnight trenches, heard a familiar tune come wafting
over the battlefield. It was the German troops, just a few yards away
in trenches of their own, singing the traditional Christmas Carol,
“Stille Nacht.” English speakers know the song better as “Silent Night.”
One by one, the enemy combatants of both armies rose from their
trenches and carefully crossed into “no-man’s land,” an unexpected and
uneasy truce beginning to form.
As dawn broke that Christmas Day, the men who only the day before
sought to slay one another were exchanging gifts and engaging in a
friendly game of football upon the deadly battlefield.
In a retelling of this amazing true story, the United Kingdom’s third
biggest supermarket, Sainsbury’s – together with the Royal British
Legion and the ad agency AMV BBDO – created a moving advertisement
depicting that holy night and fictionalizing a gift of a chocolate bar
from a British to a German soldier.
Sainsbury’s now sells that vintage-looking candy bar in its stores,
with half the purchase price donated to the Royal British Legion
charity.
But using the famous World War I story to promote a grocery store, many
have argued, was a dirty trick. Hundreds of complaints poured in to the
U.K.’s Advertising Standards Authority claiming the ad “offensive” or
claiming it was “misleading” for not immediately revealing itself to be
an advertisement.
The U.K.s advertising regulator, however, has now announced it has no
plans to launch an investigation, much less ban the
advertisement.
And, I think, told the blighters to go bugger themselves with a dildo
shaped replica of Prince Charles.
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