Sense of humour is a very personal thing.

Take my wife (boom-boom). She loves physical comedy – drop someone down a grave or hit them with a cupboard door and she’s in stitches. Then there’s my son: between the ages of three and seven, the word ‘nappy’ would have him in tears of laughter.

Being a sophisticated chap, satire’s more my thing. I love anything by The Day Today co-creator Chris Morris, enjoy the movie Dr Strangelove, and have a soft spot for South Park (all right, I’m not that sophisticated).

Perhaps it’s not surprising, then, that I loved the new Marmite TV ad that aired for the first time last night. It is a well-realised spoof of animal rescue reality shows, and follows the Marmite Rescue Team as they recover and re-home neglected jars of the black stuff. For what it’s worth, my wife and son loved it too.

So I was amazed to discover this morning that some viewers were outraged:

“Very poor taste, considering the amount of real rescues that are taking place due to the current climate,” one ‘utterly disgusted’ viewer posted on The Grocer’s website.

“You all should be ashamed of yourselves,” wrote another. “I felt absolutely sick. There are thousands and thousands of neglected kids and animals and all you can do a ‘campaign’ for is for Marmite.”

Twitter and the Marmite Facebook page revealed similar comments – with many objectors suggesting the ad made light of animal welfare.

I watched it again myself: Had I missed something? Was Marmite really trivialising important social issues? No, it wasn’t – in fact, I liked it even more second time round.

With the positive comments on social media outweighing the negative it’s clear plenty of people share my view but – because humour is such a personal thing – I’m not suggesting I am right and the objectors are wrong. I try to see both sides of any argument – unless someone tries to convince me there was any justification for the BBC making 11(!) series of My Family.

I would, however, like the haters to maintain a sense of perspective. This ad in no way weakens the position or hampers the work of welfare charities; no funds were diverted from welfare charities to fund this ad; and, to the best of my knowledge, no jars of Marmite were harmed in its making.

Marmite owner Unilever told me this afternoon it was not its intention to cause offence. “We have made every effort to ensure this commercial entertains anyone who watches it, with clear branding from the outset as well as the comedic tone,” said a spokesman. “We hope everyone will watch and enjoy this commercial in the light-hearted way it was intended.”

I hope the outcry – and the ASA complaint at least one upset viewer claims to have made – doesn’t prompt Unilever to do anything rash or unnecessary such as pull or even re-edit the ad.

The company has embraced the ‘love it or hate it’ reputation of Marmite’s taste in recent years – but probably didn’t intend the phrase to also apply to its advertising.

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