Lego will no longer give away free toys with the Daily Mail
Lego has announced it will not run any more promotional giveaways with the Daily Mail after a heartfelt plea from a father on Facebook.
Bob Jones, a British parent, wrote an open letter to Lego on Facebook last week saying the paper's headlines "create distrust of foreigners" and "blame immigrants for everything."
"Your links to the Daily Mail are wrong. And a company like yours shouldn't be supporting them," he said.
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This was brought to Lego's attention in a tweet by the Stop Funding Hate campaign.
In response, Lego said: "We have finished the agreement with the Daily Mail and are not planning any future promotional activity with the newspaper.”
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“The main purpose for us as a company is to develop amazing, creative Lego play experiences to children all over the world,” Lego said, according to FT. “In order to do that successfully, we spend a lot of time listening to what children have to say.
"And when parents and grandparents take the time to let us know how they feel, we always listen just as carefully.”
The Danish toymaker has been regularly given away free toys via the paper for years.
The Mail confirmed the end of the agreement: "Our agreement with Lego has ended and we have no plans to run any promotional activity with Lego in the foreseeable future."
For months, Stop Funding Hate has been lobbying several firms to stop advertising with the Daily Mail, The Sun and Daily Express who have been accused of "portraying migrants in overwhelmingly negative terms".
The newspapers also faced criticism for their headlines about Brexit, most recently when reporting on the High Court ruling that parliament must be given a vote before the UK government can trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty -- which formally starts the process of pulling the UK out of the EU.
According to FT, John Lewis, the Co-operative Group and Walkers are under increased pressure to stop advertising with these papers.
