An advert for BrewDog has been banned over a “tongue-in-cheek” claim that its fruit-flavoured beers constitute “one of your five a day”.
An email, dated 20 July, featured the subject heading and advertised beers with names that included Lost In Guava, Pineapple Punch and Lost In Lychee & Lime.
A recipient complained that the five-a-day claim was misleading.
The Ellon-based brewery acknowledged that the advertised beers did not count towards a consumer’s five a day, but argued that recipients would generally understand that alcoholic beverages are not equivalent to portions of fruit or vegetables.
The company said the email was only sent to existing customers, who were likely to be aware of BrewDog’s “playful” marketing style, and therefore felt that recipients were even more likely to recognise “one of your five a day” as a “tongue-in-cheek remark”.
Upholding the complaint, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) noted that UK Government guidelines recommend people eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day.
Its ruling stated: “The ASA acknowledged that the subject heading ‘One of your five a day’ might be interpreted by some consumers as a humorous nod to the fruit-flavoured beers featured in the body of the email.
“However, because the claim referred to well-known government advice on health and wellbeing, we considered that, in general, consumers would not expect advertisers to include such claims unless the advertised product was recognised as meeting the requirements of that advice.”
The ASA added that many consumers would be aware that some craft beers contain an unusually high amount of fruit, and in general would be uncertain as to whether an alcoholic beverage with fruit content counted as a portion of fruit.
“We therefore considered consumers were likely to interpret the claim ‘one of your five a day’ to mean that the fruit-flavoured beers in the ad’s body copy counted towards the recommended five daily portions of fruit and vegetables,” the ASA said.
“Because alcoholic drinks did not count towards a person’s ‘five a day’, we concluded that the claim was misleading.”
The ASA ruled that the ad must not appear again, adding: “We told BrewDog 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.”
A BrewDog spokesman responded: “We respect the ASA’s decision and are happy to confirm that beer is not a fruit or a vegetable.”
Just last year, the ASA received complaints that an ad for a BrewDog line of hard seltzers implied that the drink was healthy.
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