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Politicians pounce on Goldie Hawn ad

Paul O'Mahony
Paul O'Mahony - [email protected]
Politicians pounce on Goldie Hawn ad

A group of local politicians from Sollefteå in northern Sweden have lodged a complaint to the Swedish Consumer Agency (Konsumentverket) after viewing an advert that promotes shopping.

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The three-member consumer delegation - consisting of Micael Melander from the Social Democrats, Tonny Molander of the Greens and Left Party representative Niklas Lind - discussed the advertisement for clothing chain KappAhl at a meeting on March 23rd.

The triumvirate took exception to the ad on the basis that it fosters the development of retail therapy.

"It's an ad where a young girl is really depressed because her boyfriend has just broken up with her. Goldie Hawn, who is an actress, encourages her to indulge in some comfort shopping.

"We think that because there are so many people with shopping problems it's not a good idea to encourage people to practice comfort shopping," Micael Melander told financial news site Dina Pengar.

The politician was then asked whether the group's stance was not simply critical of advertising in general. After all, is not the point of marketing to get people to shop?

"Yes, maybe so. I'll have to think about that. It was so obvious in this particular ad. I didn't take this matter up myself; it came in as one of our cases," he said.

According to Dina Pengar, all three members of the delegation took exception to the message of the advert and supported the decision to report it to the Swedish Consumer Agency.

"We think that they are exploiting young people by showing that all problems should be solved by shopping. There have to be some sort of ethical limits," said Niklas Lind.

The delegate added that he does not watch adverts on television.

"I have some sort of filter," he said.

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