Department for Work and Pensions fails to appeal to public with 'Back to the Future Day' tweet

It also involved their new mascot 'Workie the workplace pension'

The tweet sent by DWP showing its new mascot piggy-backing off 'Back to the Future Day'

The Department for Work and Pensions is coming in for some stick this morning after trying to use "Back to the Future Day" to plug its bizarre new advertising campaign.

The DWP is pushing for people to sign up for their "Workplace Pension" scheme, and is using a large, bluey-purple monster as a mascot to do so. Launched this morning, it has been given the catchy name "Workie the Workplace Pension".

In a tweet on Wednesday morning, government officials photoshopped "Workie" into the DeLorean from Back to the Future and, in a twist on a quote from the film, wrote: "Pensions? Where we're going we don't need pensions... erm, ACTUALLY YOU DO."

Apart from a string of responses generally criticising the jarring tone of the tweet and asking @dwppressoffice to "stop it", one Twitter user noted: "Pretty sure if you have a time machine you actually can do without a pension, that’s basically the point of biff’s story."

For anyone who is still confused, Back to the Future Day marks the fact that today is the date specified for the "future" setting in the 1989 Back to the Future II film. It wrongly predicted that the world would by now by filled with hoverboards and self-tying shoelaces.

"Workie", meanwhile, will be starring in a TV advertising campaign beginning on Wednesday night. According to the BBC, 5.4 million people have so far been signed up to a workplace pension under programmes of auto-enrolment at larger companies - but the government wants to reach out to millions more who are self-employed or work for small businesses.