UK: Tobacco Advert ''Likely to Mislead''

Source from:  Press Association 07/30/2014

A tobacco company ad has been banned for using text from an old UK government email to misleadingly suggest there was no evidence to support the introduction of plain packaging.

The national press ad for Gallaher, the UK trading company of Japan Tobacco International (JTI), of April last year included a 2011 email from the Department of Health (DH) to the Australian Department of Health and Ageing which stated: "I work on the UK Government's Tobacco Policy Team...you will be aware that the UK Government is considering the introduction of plain packaging of tobacco products."

The email continued: "As I'm sure you're aware, one of the difficulties regarding this is that nobody has done this and therefore, there isn't any hard evidence to show that it works."

The ad highlighted the text "there isn't any hard evidence to show that it works", followed by the line: "We couldn't have put it better ourselves."

Thirteen complainants, including Cancer Research UK, The UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies and Ash (Action on Smoking and Health), objected that including the DH's email misleadingly implied that there was no evidence to support plain packaging, noting that it predated significant research and the introduction of standardised packaging in Australia.

Gallaher said the ad was intended to question the rationale of the DH's approach in 2011 and pointed out that at the time the ad appeared in April last year, JTI's UK managing director publicly stated: "We are using this media campaign to demonstrate that in 2011 even the DoH accepted that these proposals are not supported by any hard evidence."

Gallaher said the email was reproduced in its entirety and included the date the email was sent, adding that the claim "We couldn't have put it better ourselves" was expressed in the past tense.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) noted that the ad included the date the email was sent from the DH but said this information was not made clear and "in any event readers would consider the highlighted reference to 'there isn't any hard evidence to show that it works' as being a reference to the position at the time the ad appeared, and not only to the position two years earlier".

The ASA added: "We understood that the DH considered the email was not intended as a definitive statement about the state of the evidence about tobacco packaging in May 2011, and did not reflect their view of the evidence at the time the ad appeared."

It concluded: "Because we considered the ad implied that no real evidence existed to support the introduction of plain packaging at the time the ad appeared and because we understood that such evidence existed to support the introduction of plain packaging, we considered the presentation of the ad was likely to mislead."

It ruled that the ad must not appear again in its current form and added: "We told Gallaher to ensure future ads were not likely to mislead."

JTI's UK managing director Daniel Torras said: "It was not misleading to reprint, in full, an email written by DH.

"With just over a week to go before the end of the third UK consultation on plain packaging, there still isn't any hard evidence to show that it works."

Ash chief executive Deborah Arnott said: "Yet again the claims made by JTI have been found to be false and misleading. The evidence from Australia is clear: standard packs make smoking less attractive and have helped drive down smoking rates.

"Standard packs will help deter children from starting to smoke, which is why tobacco companies are fighting so hard against it. It's time for the Prime Minister to say that the tobacco industry won't succeed in its dishonest campaign, and that Parliament will get the chance to vote on standard packs regulations before the next election."

Cancer Research UK executive director of policy and information, Sarah Woolnough, said: "This is another occasion of JTI's adverts being ruled misleading. They have invested time, effort and a lot of money into devising an advert to undermine this vital public health measure.

"But the Government's own independent evidence review, coupled with falling smoking rates in Australia - where the measure is in place - show that standardised packaging can reduce the terrible burden of tobacco which kills 100,000 people each year in the UK. We're again urging the Government not to delay and to introduce plain, standardised packs as soon as possible."

In a separate ruling, the ASA did not uphold 18 complaints about a television ad for the NHS smoke free campaign that showed a growth on a cigarette increasing in size accompanied by the voiceover: "When you smoke, the chemicals you inhale cause mutations in your body and mutations are how cancer starts. Every 15 cigarettes you smoke will cause a mutation."

Some 18 complainants and the pressure group Forest complained that the claim was misleading and could not be substantiated but the ASA ruled that it was supported by evidence. Enditem