Cold water shock campaigners welcome TV advert change
Fiona Gosling, whose son Cameron died aged 14 after jumping into the River Wear, says it was irresponsible - but she accepts Birds Eye's apology
Last updated 1st Feb 2018
A County Durham Mam, whose son drowned after getting cold water shock from jumping into the River Wear, says she's glad Birdseye have agreed to change one of their adverts.
Fiona Gosling's 14-year-old son, Cameron, died when he jumped into the River Wear without acclimatising. His body went into shock as a result, and despite efforts by his friends to save him, he drowned.
The Birdseye advert that caused the controversy featured Captain Birdseye describing how "he enjoyed the simple things in life, like jumping into cold water on a hot day with his grandson."
Fiona's told us she found that kind of message, from such a large company, irresponsible:
"I've spoke to a lady from Birdseye this morning who has apologised, and couldn't have been anymore helpful if she tried.
"But like I say, it's not something that they as a company would look at because it's not something any of them have experienced."
Since Cameron's death, Fiona has gone into schools as part of Dying To Be Cool - a campaign that aims to educate kids about the risks of cold water shock:
"Kids tend to be the ones that pass the messages on the best, I find, so if you go in and tell a personal story, you can see it's hitting those kids and then they come out, they go home and tell their families."
In a statement, Birds Eye said:
"At Birds Eye, we take our advertising responsibilities very seriously and we were grateful to be made aware of this issue. Since then, we have taken the current advert off air. We are now amending the voiceover to remove references to the temperature of the water and weather.
"We take all appropriate steps to ensure that our advertising is suitable to air in the UK and observe safety guidelines during the production of all our advertising. Our testing did not raise this specific issue. As a family brand, we decided to take swift action and wish campaigners every success in highlighting this important issue."