ASA bans advert implying vitamin pills could help women conceive
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Version 0 of 1. An advert for a vitamin supplement designed for women trying to conceive has been banned after the regulator ruled there was no proof that the product could increase the likelihood of pregnancy. The national press ad for Pregnacare Conception showed an image of a sperm entering an egg and said: “For women who are trying for a baby zinc contributes to normal fertility and reproduction plus 20 nutrients including folic acid, vitamins B12, and D.” Two readers, who believed the ad implied that the product would help women conceive, complained that the claims were not authorised on the EU register of nutrition and health claims. Vitabiotics, which owns the brand, said the ad was intended to show the product was suitable for women who were trying to conceive but acknowledged that there was no authorised claim on the EU register that a particular food helped a woman to conceive. It said the product name was not a claim in itself because it indicated when the product should be used – at around the time of conception. They believed the average consumer targeted by the ad – women who were planning conception – would interpret the name in that way and not more widely. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said only health claims listed as authorised on the EU register were permitted in marketing food, including supplements. It said the emphasis on the words “trying for a baby” implied that the supplement had a health benefit over and above contributing to normal fertility and reproduction. It said: “We considered that those aspects of the ad particularly, in combination with the product name and images of the sperm and egg and the smiling couple, resulted in an overall impression that the supplement could assist or increase the likelihood of conceiving, providing a ‘boost’ in fertility and reproduction to above-normal levels and thus playing a significant role in making any woman who took the product more likely to become pregnant. “Because there were no authorised health claims that the product, or any of its constituent substances, could assist or increase the likelihood of conception, we concluded the ad was in breach of the code.” It ruled that the ad must not appear again in its current form, adding: “We told Vitabiotics Ltd to ensure their ads did not include stated or implied unauthorised health claims in future.” |