The encyclopedia · Advertising & PR · Marketing decision · 2026
Wowcher's mass email joked about a toddler thrown into a crocodile pit
'Snap up these deals quicker than a croc can catch a kid!' — sent to millions days after a real toddler was critically injured in a crocodile pit.
Wowcher
What happened
On 19 June 2026 a three-year-old boy was allegedly thrown roughly 15 feet into a crocodile enclosure at Johnsons of Old Hurst, a family-run zoo near Huntingdon, England, breaking his arm and pelvis on landing. The zoo owner's wife jumped into the pit to pull him out; he was airlifted to hospital in critical but stable condition. The story led UK news for days.
Two days later, on 21 June, deals site Wowcher sent a mass marketing email to millions of subscribers with the subject line: 'Snap up these deals quicker than a croc can catch a kid!' It advertised an inflatable kayak ride and a spa day. Screenshots circulated within hours and the backlash was immediate — commenters called it 'disgusting' and 'absolutely shocking' given the child was still in hospital.
Wowcher apologised the same day: '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.' The company said it was reviewing all scheduled marketing content and strengthening its creative approval and sign-off process.
Why it happened
- Newsjacking needs a beat before the send, not after: the line was apparently written and queued as generic wordplay, then went out into a news cycle it was never checked against.
- 'Never approved for use' is itself the finding: an unapproved line reaching millions of inboxes means the approval step either doesn't gate sends or was skipped, not that one writer had bad judgment.
- The subject line was optimised for the wrong metric — open-rate cleverness — while the news a subscriber had just read made the same wordplay read as mockery of a critically injured child.
The lesson
Wowcher's subject line was never approved — it went out anyway. A tragedy in the same week's headlines is not raw material for wordplay; it's the one topic every scheduled send needs checked against.
Sources
- The Guardian — 'Wowcher apologises for email referencing toddler crocodile attack', 21 June 2026
- Metro — 'Wowcher advert made joke about toddler thrown into crocodile pit', 22 June 2026
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