Pet Sematary trailer ‘inappropriately targeted’ at children, watchdog rules
The advertising watchdog has censured film studio Paramount Pictures after a “frightening” trailer for the horror film Pet Sematary was shown before Youtube videos likely to appeal to children.
The trailer – which opened with a girl walking through some woods with a voiceover stating: “Something up in those woods, it brings things back; sometimes dead is better” – appeared before videos on two Youtube channels in February this year.
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The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled that the trailer “contained several scenes which we considered viewers, in particular children, would find frightening”.
The trailer for the film, which was based on a novel by Stephen King, also showed a child with a protruding spine and shoulder blades crawling across the floor and other violent scenes showing sharp objects and blood.
“We considered that the ad was likely to cause distress to children, and therefore should have been appropriately targeted to avoid the risk of children seeing it,” the watchdog said.
The advert appeared before videos of the popular game Fortnite on the DanTDM and FGTEEV channels, which the ASA said “would have appealed particularly to children”.
Paramount said it had used behaviour-based targeting for Pet Sematary’s advertising campaign so that only Youtube users over 18 who had engaged with related content would see the trailer.
The studio said there was always the possibility of a child viewing the trailer while logged into an adult’s account.
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The watchdog ruled Paramount’s precautions had “provided insufficient” to prevent the trailer being shown before content appealing to children, and that the adverts had therefore been “inappropriately targeted”.
The ASA has told Paramount to ensure future adverts that are unsuitable for children do not appear on content “of particular appeal to children”.
Main image credit: Paramount Pictures