Birds Eye has withdrawn a TV advert for fish fingers which showed Captain Birdseye jumping into the sea after complaints that it could encourage unsafe behaviour around water.
The new ad campaign, first broadcast in the UK last month, depicts Captain Birdseye, who seems less grizzled than in previous incarnations, out on deck with three children.
As the narrator describes the captain’s love of “jumping into cold water on a hot day with his grandson”, he and one of the children are shown leaping overboard into the sea.
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Birds Eye has decided to withdraw the advert “following a complaint from Durham County Council, which has worked on water safety following the death of a 14-year-old boy in the River Wear in 2015,” according to ad industry news site CampaignLive.
Schoolboy Cameron Gosling suffered cold water shock and drowned after jumping into the river without acclimatising to the temperature.
“Jumping into water can result in cold water shock which is a major factor in drownings,” the council wrote in the letter to the frozen food company, ITV reports.
“This behaviour is not a ‘simple thing’, it leads to many fatalities and we ask that you reconsider this messaging.”
Gosling’s mother, Fiona, told the London Evening Standard she was “shocked” to see the advert apparently encourage the activity. “It seemed as though Birds Eye hadn't done its research before making it,” she said.
Rebecca Ramsay, whose 13-year-old son Dylan drowned in similar circumstance while swimming in a lake at a Lancashire quarry in 2011, was among those who called for the ad to be taken off the air.
Ramsay, who has since become an avid campaigner for raising awareness of water safety, contacted Birds Eye to voice her concerns:
The company has said the ad will be temporarily withdrawn while the narration is re-recorded to omit any references to cold water and hot days.
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