Specsavers has been forced to apologise and pull newspaper advertising after it received a flurry of complaints over the placement of its adverts.
‘Just what you wanted to hear’ adverts for the firm’s hearing care services in the Daily Express placed next to front page headlines including ‘New migrant rush to Britain,’ saw consumers threaten to boycott the multiple until it ‘stopped funding hate’.
Others also took issue with a follow-up full-page advert in the Daily Express by the firm a week later, which appeared by a spread on how the ‘migrant influx is threatening to destroy our way of life.’
The Stop Funding Hate Group, which challenges what it described as divisive hate campaigns in The Sun, Daily Mail and Daily Express, urged the company to pull its adverts.
Specsavers said it had no prior knowledge of editorial content its adverts appeared alongside.
Responding via Twitter, Specsavers said: ‘We advertise with a number of publications who carry different editorial policies and political stances. While we may not always agree with these stances we do believe in freedom of press.
‘Should any content be deemed to incite animosity that is up to the Press Standards Commission to investigate. We do not have prior knowledge of editorial content that our ads appear alongside.’