News

Thursday 31 January 2008

Woolworths Withdraws Lolita Bed

Raisingkids investigation sees Woolworths withdraw child's bed.

It's interesting to see how fast a multinational company can move if it's worried about its public image.

Yesterday, Raisingkids.co.uk's editor Catherine Hanly noticed that Woolworths was selling a range of beds aimed at young children, with the unbelievably bad taste name of Lolita.

Having alerted other parents to the story through the Raisingkids' forums (click here to read the debate so far), she contacted the press department at Woolworths, asking them to comment on the story. Press Officer Daniel Himsworth from the company's press office emailed back, saying: 'I will investigate this and come back to you later on this afternoon.'

Meanwhile, one of our readers contacted the company to register her distaste and was told: 'Our aim is to attract a broad customer base of all ages and make every effort to stock items, which appeal to the whole family. However, we also have to respond to customer demands and follow current trends.'

Fast forward a few hours and strangely the bed in question has disappeared from the Woolies website, although it was still in the main listings when we looked!

We then had a phone call from a Woolworths' press officer saying; 'This was one product sold online and in the Big Red Book and quite naturally the people who arranged it had no idea about that word. They'd never heard of the word and in fact, neither had I. I had to go on to Wikipedia to find out the meaning of the word.'

In the end, an official response from Woolworths came through saying; 'A product called the Lolita Midsleeper Combi was ranged online from a direct supplier (a company that advertises its products on Woolworths’ website and then delivers them direct to the customer). This was a bedroom set for £395. Now this has been brought to our attention, the product has been removed from sale with immediate effect. We will be talking to the supplier with regard to how the branding came about.'

A spokesman for the Diocese of Salford told the BBC 'The diocese and Catholic schools board do not have a moral objection, but it is up to individual schools to decide whether to allow the vaccinations to be carried out in school'.

RK Editor Catherine on the Vanessa Feltz show
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RK Editor Catherine on the Jeremy Vine show
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RK Editor Catherine on BBC 5 Live
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