Toby Young Toby Young

What the hell was Paperchase thinking?

I’d question the judgment of an executive who risks alienating four million Mail readers

issue 25 November 2017

Last Saturday, the high-street chain Paperchase ran a promotion in the Daily Mail offering two free rolls of wrapping paper. Nothing objectionable about that, you might think, even if the design was migraine-inducingly awful. I have lost count of the number of times I have been dragged into this ghastly emporium by my daughter on a weekend in pursuit of some over-priced piece of tat. Not recommended if you are nursing a hangover.

Later that day, the left-wing lobby group Stop Funding Hate launched a fusillade against Paperchase on Twitter for having the temerity to advertise in Britain’s second-best-selling daily newspaper. ‘Is a Daily Mail promotion what customers want to see from @FromPaperchase?’ it asked. The answer was presumably ‘no’ because Stop Funding Hate’s reason for existence is to bully large retailers into withdrawing their ads from right-of-centre tabloid newspapers in the hope of destroying our free press.

Paperchase responded by tweeting a request for its customers’ views, at which point hundreds of hashtag activists piled in, castigating the company for thoughtlessly advertising in a newspaper with a paid circulation of 1.4

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