The Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a class-action lawsuit that alleged Trader Joe’s Manuka Honey product labeling was misleading. Trader Joe’s marketed its store brand Manuka honey as “100% New Zealand Manuka Honey” or “New Zealand Manuka Honey.” Plaintiffs claimed that these labels were misleading because the honey only consisted of between 57.3% and 62.6% honey derived from Manuka flower nectar. Plaintiffs alleged that the label and ingredient list created a “false impression” that the Trader Joe’s honey contained a higher percentage of honey derived from Manuka.
Continue Reading Sweet Victory: Ninth Circuit Affirms Dismissal of Trader Joe’s Honey False Ad Suit
misleading advertising
Non! – ASA Bans Kronenbourg Ad For Over-Emphasising French Connection
Kronenbourg’s advertising campaign starring French footballing icon Eric Cantona has been banned. The ASA investigated two separate ads for the same campaign; a TV ad and a print ad. The TV ad explained how French men were lauded like “British footballers” for growing the French sourced Strisselpalt Hop, a key ingredient of Kronenbourg. The print…
ASA Administers First Aid Ad Ban
In a rare move, the ASA overturned at the end of last year its previous decision to reject a complaint about the accuracy of data used in a St John Ambulance ad, and has banned the ad in its current form, after an independent review. The ad (watch it here) was the 10th…
Advocacy Groups Say FTC is at Odds with the First Amendment
Two nonprofits, the Alliance for Natural Health – USA, and TechFreedom, released a report last week alleging that the Federal Trade Commission broke free speech laws when in January 2013, it barred POM Wonderful from asserting that its pomegranate juice is “effective in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of any disease,” including heart disease, prostate cancer, and erectile dysfunction, unless the claim is supported by two randomized, well-controlled, human clinical trials. In their report, the nonprofits estimate that the two clinical trials required by the FTC could cost up to $600 million each.
The POM order highlights the balancing act between requiring substantiation to ensure a claim is truthful and not misleading to consumers, and overly burdensome substantiation requirements that suppress otherwise truthful speech. The nonprofits’ report criticizes the FTC’s ruling as falling into the latter category by requiring an enormously increased level of substantiation.
Continue Reading Advocacy Groups Say FTC is at Odds with the First Amendment
ASA Bans Naked Farmer Ad, But Not for The Flesh On Display
A TV ad for Richmond ham which features a naked man wearing only a cap and eating a ham sandwich, was banned by the ASA at the end of last month, but not for the reasons you might think. The man sang a song declaring his love for Richmond ham which proclaimed that Richmond ham…
Serial (or Rather Cereal) Issues in Advertising
This post was written by Rachel Rubin.
If it looks like fruit and sounds like fruit, it must be fruit. Well, not exactly, and please don’t waste our time, says a California court. Ray Werbel recently filed a lawsuit in San Francisco federal court claiming that he bought and ate Froot Loops cereal, believing…
ASA Report on Green Advertising
The UK Advertising and Standards Agency (ASA) has recently published a report in response to an increase in consumer complaints regarding misleading environmental claims in advertisements. Companies and advertising agencies have been accused of "green washing" advertisements – making environmental claims that are less about saving the planet and more about exploiting consumer concerns. Particularly…
Environmental Marketing in Europe
This forum was written by Avv. Felix Hofer.
1. The European Approach
1.1. Up till now the Europe Union did not issue a set of harmonizing principles and rules meant to specifically govern ‘environmental/green marketing’.
The main reason for such approach was not disinterest from the EU’s institutional bodies towards the issue, but probably…