Wowcher Apologises For Disturbing Advert Mocking Boy, 3, Thrown Into Crocodile Enclosure At Zoo

Wild bit of marketing from the people at Wowcher over the weekend, as customers opened up an e-mail urging them to check out some new “special deals” on getaways and activities.

Their headline: “Snap up these deals quicker than a croc can catch a kid.”

Well, it’s topical – will give them that. Still, it’s pretty mental that someone working at a major e-commerce site could come up with that and even crazier that it was green-lit to be sent out.

The edgy headline references the 3-year-old boy who was thrown into a crocodile enclosure at Johnsons of Old Hurst zoo in Cambridgeshire last week.

A spokesperson from Wowcher told LADbible: “We are extremely sorry for an email subject line sent by Wowcher yesterday.

“The wording was unacceptable. It should never have been written, it was never approved for use. The responsibility sits with us and we are urgently reviewing how our processes failed.

“We recognise the hurt and distress it has caused, particularly for the young child’s family at this unimaginably difficult time.

“We are reviewing all scheduled marketing content while we urgently strengthen our creative, approval and sign-off safeguards.

“There is no excuse for this. We apologise unreservedly and will take the necessary steps to make sure this does not happen again.”

Never approved for use? That’s weird. All large e-commerce businesses have a CRM manager who has final sign off on e-mails. Maybe this one was AI-written and AI-approved? Or maybe someone at the Wowcher officer wrote it up to amuse their colleagues, went off to make a coffee, forgot to change the draft and pressed send without realising?

Either way, it’s drummed up a fair bit of publicity for Wowcher which isn’t a terrible thing given that most people probably forgot they exist. After all, if you want a cheap spa day, are you really going to care that Wowcher cracked an dark, edgy joke? I doubt it.

For the woman who was left fuming after her £99 Wowcher mystery holiday looked like a ketamine den, click HERE.