A marketing email for Brewdog has been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for featuring the phrase ‘one of your five a day’ in the subject heading.
The body of the email had an image of the brand’s Hazy Jane Guava beer with text below reading: “Summer is well and truly here. Quench your thirst while soaking up the sun (or rain) with our fruit laden favourites. From Pineapple Punch to our limited edition Hazy Jane Passionfruit, we’ve got all your fruit needs covered!.”
A complainant contacted the advertising watchdog to challenge whether the claim ‘one of your five a day’ was misleading.
In response, Brewdog acknowledged that the advertised beers did not count towards a consumer’s ‘five a day’, but also stated that it believed that recipients would ‘generally understand’ that alcoholic beverages were not equivalent to portions of fruit or vegetables.
“They emphasised that the subject heading was neither intended to be, nor likely to be, interpreted as a factual claim about the beers featured in the body of the email,” the ASA said.
The beer brand, who gave up its B Corp certification last week, also believed that recipients of the email would interpret the ‘five a day’ claim as a ‘tongue-in-cheek remark’.
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Nevertheless the ad authority believed that because the claim referred to ‘well-known’ government advice on health and wellbeing, the ASA considered that consumers would not expect advertisers to include such claims unless the advertised product was recognised as meeting the requirements of that advice.
The watchdog added: “We considered that, in general, consumers would be uncertain as to whether an alcoholic beverage with fruit content counted as a portion of fruit under the government’s ‘5 A Day’ advice.
“Because alcoholic drinks did not count towards a person’s ‘5 A day’, we concluded that the claim was misleading.
“The ad must not appear again in the form complained of.
“We told BrewDog plc to ensure that their future ads did not misleadingly imply that alcoholic beverages counted towards the five daily portions of fruit and vegetables recommended by government guidelines.”
