When conducting advertising campaigns, many manufacturers do not provide full information about the product directly in the advertisement. And this is not a lie. They simply keep silent about something or this information "does not fit" into the advertising format. However, now such silence is punishable - a precedent has been created.
We are talking about the recent scandal, during which already paid online advertising of Lavazza Coffee capsules and Dualit coffee bags was banned from being shown by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). The whole point is that in their advertising campaigns the packaging of these products was indirectly described as “home compostable”. Let us emphasize that this was not stated directly, but was implied by the description. But in fact, the packaging is certified as industrially compostable. And these are completely different chemical processes that cause the decomposition of the packaging material.
Having found this mismatch between consumer expectations raised by the advertising description and the actual composting conditions, the ASA ordered the advertising campaigns to cease. And the court upheld this, finding that the phrase “compostable” when applied to a consumer product intended for use in the home suggested that the capsules and bags could be placed in a home composter and was therefore “likely to be misleading”. Furthermore, the ASA argued that the product’s incompatibility with home composting, its intended disposal location and advice to help consumers find their nearest recycling point “was material information that should have been made clear in the search ad, notwithstanding any space limitations”.
The companies' claims that their websites linked to the adverts contained information about the packaging being industrially compostable did not convince the ASA, as this information was not directly stated on the pages linked to.
As a result, the advert was found to be in breach of a number of rules of the CAP Code and was withdrawn in its current form. Future adverts must be amended to take into account all of the ASA's concerns.
Materials used from packagingeurope.com.