Center Parcs Joins Southbank Centre By Scrapping Advertising In Daily Mail After ‘Homophobic’ Column On Tom Daley

Other British brands carrying out urgent reviews after latest diatribe from Richard Littlejohn.

London arts hub, the Southbank Centre, has scrapped future advertising from the Daily Mail after a Richard Littlejohn column urged readers: “Please don’t pretend two dads is the new normal.”

Center Parcs said it was stopping advertising in the Daily Mail with “immediate effect” and other brands including Iceland, NatWest, the Craft Gin Club and AutoTrader said they were reviewing their advertising in the newspaper.

1/2 We take where we advertise very seriously and have a number of steps to prevent our advertising from appearing alongside inappropriate content. We felt this placement was completely unacceptable and therefore ceased advertising with the Daily Mail with immediate effect.

— Center Parcs UK (@CenterParcsUK) February 16, 2018

The piece, which was described by many readers on Twitter as “homophobic”, was in response to the news that Olympic diver Tom Daley and his husband Dustin Black are having a child via a surrogate.

“Before the usual suspects start bouncing up and down, squealing ‘homophobia’, don’t bother,” wrote Littlejohn, adding: “I still cling to the belief that children benefit most from being brought up by a man and a woman.”

This is what homophobic, transphobic, discriminatory, bigoted hate speech looks like.

This is what readers of and advertisers in the @DailyMailUK continue to support, day after day.

This is unacceptable. Shame on you Richard Littlejohn.#DailyMail 👎🏼

— Dr Adrian Harrop (@DrAdrianHarrop) February 16, 2018

I love that Richard Littlejohn's gone with "two dads aren't normal." Jesus had two dads, dude. https://t.co/mTLiGbp9qE

— Caitlin Moran (@caitlinmoran) February 16, 2018

If you trained a neural network to spew homophobic bile you’d get this piece by Richard Littlejohn. https://t.co/1TmjLZCxZf

— Ted Mackey (@tmackey427) February 16, 2018

Genuinely surprised and incredibly disappointed @southbankcentre associates and funds this. They've done great LGBT+ events over the years. Surely time to reassess what side of the fence they want to be on.

— ❄️ Frosty ❄️ (@frosted_north) February 16, 2018

Totally understand why advertisers want to reach the 1.4 million people who read the Mail.

BUT that does mean to many LGBT people and our families and supporters, that such companies are happy to fund hate speech against us to do so. https://t.co/BRgsiRSMjT

— James Ball (@jamesrbuk) February 16, 2018

@makersacademy hi guys. You are advertising on a daily mail article today that is homophobic. Not a good look. @StopFundingHate

— Ben Ashenden (@BenAshenden) February 16, 2018

Online campaign group Stop Funding Hate called out the London venue – which is the UK’s largest arts centre – for advertising with the newspaper following the publication of Littlejohn’s column.

In response, a spokesperson for the Southbank Centre, which has advertised in print and digitally in the publication twice in the past 12 months, told HuffPost UK: “We reach out to audiences through wide-ranging online and offline media titles, across the political spectrum. We monitor the environment in which our advertising appears, to ensure the values of the publication are compatible with our own. We have no future plans to advertise within the Daily Mail.”

A post shared by Tom Daley (@tomdaley) on

The venue is an ardent supporter of LGBT+ rights and threw a huge wedding party to celebrate the Gay Marriage Act in 2013. During the Big Wedding Weekend, 70 couples, both gay and straight, got married or renewed their vows.

Response to the move has been largely positive on Twitter.

That's very good to hear. Really well done on taking the issue as seriously as it is.
Many companies just hope the issue will go away, but it never will whilst papers run such relentless bullying campaigns against minorities. pic.twitter.com/N8KQd9OpMT

— Ian Evans (@snavenai) February 16, 2018

Thank you for listening.

— eightyfive (@eightyfivemusic) February 16, 2018

Thank you! I would not have booked at SB in future (and I frequently buy tickets to your events) had you’d not responded in this way.

— Gary L Wales (@GaryWales) February 16, 2018

Congratulations on doing the RIGHT THING.

— (((Alan Henness))) (@zeno001) February 16, 2018

Stop Funding Hate founder Richard Wilson said: “The Daily Mail is increasingly out of touch with the views of mainstream British society – and it’s no surprise that more and more advertisers are distancing themselves.

A recent YouGov poll found that 58% of people believe that companies should withdraw their advertising if it is placed next to content they think is racist, sexist, homophobic or xenophobic. The same poll found that barely 10% of people believe that the Daily Mail has a positive influence on our society.

“The South Bank Centre are to be commended for responding promptly to their members’ concerns.”

Quorn, Suzuki, Iceland, Carpetright, NatWest and the Co-op were also identified as advertisers with the newspaper.

A spokesman for Co-op said: “We’ve consulted with our members on this matter and the current view of the majority is that it’s not right for us to use advertising spend to influence editorial. During this discussion with our members it also became clear that they wanted our advertising in these publications to reflect and promote our values even more strongly, the most recent being our campaign to tackle modern slavery.”

Other brands said they were reviewing their advertising with the Daily Mail.

Thanks for bringing this to our attention, we're currently looking into it to ensure our ads don't appear by content not in line with our values

— Craft Gin Club (@craftginclub) February 16, 2018

Hi @CaffCast, Auto Trader does not endorse this article. We have measures in place to prevent our ads appearing next to illegal, obscene or inappropriate content. Thank you for pointing this case out to us – our digital advertising team is investigating as we speak.

— AutoTrader.co.uk (@AutoTrader_UK) February 16, 2018

Hi @NatWest_Help as proud sponsor of the @BritLGBTAwards are you OK with funding this? pic.twitter.com/C8QVbTMTRk

— Stop Funding Hate (@StopFundingHate) February 16, 2018

We take this issue extremely seriously. This is not content sponsored by us. Our ads are served up through a 3rd party and we are investigating why they have appeared here. DR

— NatWest (@NatWest_Help) February 16, 2018

Hi Emily, we're reviewing the websites on which our adverts display to ensure that we don't appear alongside any content that is not consistent with the things we stand for.

— Bettys (@Bettys1919) February 16, 2018

Hi Ben - we haven't specifically put an ad on that site, it's part of the Google Display network. Im speaking to marketing now and will do what I can to resolve. Thanks for letting us know. ^adam

— Makers Academy (@makersacademy) February 16, 2018

NatWest tweeted: “We take this issue extremely seriously. This is not content sponsored by us. Our ads are served up through a third party and we are investigating why they have appeared here.” Bettys bakery said: “We’re reviewing the websites on which our adverts display to ensure that we don’t appear alongside any content that is not consistent with the things we stand for.”

Web developers Makers Academy said it was looking to “resolve” the matter.

A spokeswoman for frozen food giant Iceland said the brand: “will continue to advertise where we are able to reach significant numbers of our customers. We will naturally review where we place our advertising if our customers stop buying any particular newspaper because they do not approve of its editorial content.”

The Daily Mail has been contacted for comment.

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