Waitrose has altered a section of its Christmas ad that showed two farmers comparing sun tans following criticism by a skin cancer charity and patients.
The ad shows producers across the year as they grow and harvest food for the Christmas dinner table, including a scene in which two farmers compare their tanned arms from working outside. The supermarket previously apologised after Melanoma UK and viewers raised concerns that the scene glorified sun tans and failed to highlight the dangers of sun exposure.
The scene has now been cut from the ad. A Waitrose spokeswoman said: “Our ad celebrates the care and effort that our partners and real farmers – who work in all weathers – put in to make sure our customers have what they need for Christmas.
“While we included some light-hearted and ‘true to life’ moments, we’ve listened to the comments made about the serious message of sun safety and will be using an updated version of the ad to address these concerns.”
One person who has melanoma wrote on Waitrose’s Facebook post that she found it “absolutely astonishing that a company like yourselves should be showing farmers glorifying in their sun tans”.
She added: “This is a kick in the teeth for all melanoma patients and for all the organisations trying to educate everyone into the dangers of sun tans. What on earth were you thinking to include this in a Christmas advert? Words fail me.”
Skin cancer charity Melanoma UK also criticised the advert, saying: “Waitrose can do better than this.”
But there were also critics of Waitrose's decision to change its ad, with one person on social media writing: "Why do we pander to people who are offended by anything and everything? It’s going too far!"
A pig farmer based in Wales, in response to the complaint about the ad, tweeted: "Hopefully you have raised the same concerns with every corporation currently promoting alcohol (alcoholism, abuse liver cancer, death) and sugar-based products (obesity and a myriad of health problems many of which lead to death)?"
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