Dairy Crest apologises for work experience ‘slave for a day’ stunt

The Frijj manufacturer was criticised for being insensitive to young jobseekers after offering Warren, 24, as a prize He was supposed to be the prize that everyone wanted to win. Replete with gormless look and dressed in a lumberjack-esque shirt and cap, Warren the 24-year-old “work experience boy” was prepared to do “whatever you want him to”. But with youth unemployment hovering near the million mark, and thousands of young people desperate to do anything to get their foot on the employment ladder, Dairy Crest, the company behind the competition to market Frijj bottled milkshakes, has admitted being insensitive and apologised for offering up a “slave for a day” prize. Warren was won on eight occasions by people around the country who put him to a range of tasks: everything from clearing up dog faeces to washing cars, breaking wood, gardening and painting fences. His eight-hour days as Frijj’s intern were filmed and posted on YouTube where they have been viewed by more than 80,000 people. More than 2,800 have been following his experiences on Twitter. Dairy Crest, which also makes Cathedral cheddar, Clover spread and Country Life butter, said it had received a handful of complaints about using Warren as a prize but stressed that he was a paid actor who was not made to do anything “illegal or immoral” or anything he regarded as “mistreatment”. Abigail Aked, 23, who has campaigned for youth employment rights in the past, said the competition had hit a raw nerve with her. “Why does a huge brand like Frijj need a generic work experience boy to front their competition? I guess they didn’t want to seem to miss out on the free youth labour gravy train that businesses now believe they are entitled to. “This is just an incredibly puerile attempt to make what appears to be an in-house office joke into a marketing strategy,” she said, adding that calling a fully grown man a “boy” was “weird”. In April, Nick Clegg spoke out against the culture of unpaid internships , saying it was damaging social mobility because only the children of the rich could afford to work for free. However the prime minister, David Cameron, said he would be comfortable with offering unpaid experiences to friends and family. There are estimated to be more than 100,000 interns in the UK at any one time and a good proportion of them are believed to be unpaid or remunerated below the minimum wage. In a recent survey , 17% of managers said they took on unpaid interns to lower business costs. Dairy Crest said the competition had gone down well with their target market of 15- to 24-year-old males and that they had received 187,000 entries, “far more” than they expected. The company also apologised for causing offence. “This is a light-hearted, ‘tongue in cheek’ campaign that is meant to entertain and in no way offend any of our consumers. It was never our intention to make fun of young people looking for work,” it said. “If the promotion has caused any upset, we are very sorry indeed and can only reiterate that there was never, nor is there now, any intention for the Win Warren campaign to cause any offence.” Warren was unavailable for comment. Young people Dairy Crest Unemployment Work & careers Food & drink industry Shiv Malik guardian.co.uk

Posted by on June 27, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.