Seven ad blunder leads to Nestle breaching rules for kids advertising – again
Nestle has been found guilty of breaching the industry’s rules on advertising unhealthy products to children just weeks after promising it had put new processes in place following a similar incident.
The finding is particularly embarrassing for Nestle because it was a founding signatory of the Responsible Children’s Marketing Initiative and its marketing director Ian Alwill is also chairman of the Advertising Standards Board, the industry’s self-regulation watchdog.
Last year, Nestle was found to have been advertising Smarties in TV shows aimed at children, which is unacceptable under the RCMI guidelines. At the time it said that the ads – which should have been targeted at programs primarily watched by parents rather than children – had run in kids’ films thanks to a breakdown in communications between its media agency ZenithOptimedia and broadcasters.
In October Nestle told Mumbrella: “Having been made aware of this, we are now putting processes in place to ensure that no other Nestlé products that do not represent healthy dietary choices appear inadvertently during children’s programming.”
The original finding against the company came on October 13.
But on October 23, the ad for its ice cream Drumstick ran during a morning airing of My Friends Tigger and Pooh on Seven in Brisbane.
Although Nestle denied that the airing of the ad breached the rules, it said that Seven has broken its own instructions on the broadcast. It told the ASB:
“In relation to My Friends Tigger and Pooh, Nestlé admits this show is Children’s Programming. Nestlé would like to note to the Board that it was inadvertent on the part of Nestlé and unplanned that the advertisement appeared during this program. This placement was a bonus spot provided by the network. It was not in the media plan, nor was it booked or approved by Nestlé or its agency. Further, the placement of the Advertisement during this program was contrary to the instruction given by Nestlé to the network.”
Nestle continued: “Nestlé is concerned that, contrary to its instructions to the network and its media schedule, the Advertisement nonetheless appeared during Children’s Programming. To ensure there is not a repeat of this inadvertent and unplanned screening of an advertisement for its products during Children’s Programming, Nestlé is currently taking further steps to ensure that other Nestlé products do not inadvertently appear during Children‟s Programming.
It said that it would be “again notifying the networks at senior management level that advertisements for Nestlé products are not to be screened during Children‟s Programming (for both paid and unpaid media airtime)”.
However, the ASB ruled that Nestle had breached the rules. It said: “The relevant requirement is that the company not advertise food and beverage products to children under 12 in media unless those products represent healthy dietary choices. The Board noted that the advertised product Drumstick ice creams are not a healthier dietary choice.”
It added: “The Board accepted that this broadcast during My Friends Tigger and Pooh was in error and also noted the steps that Nestle has subsequently taken to ensure that there is no similar error made. Despite being broadcast in a child’s programme in error, the Board considered that the advertisement breached the RCMI.”
The ASB dismissed complaints at the ads appearing in shows such as Junior Masterchef and The Simpsons as these have a majority adult audience.
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Nestle look at corporate responsibility like a dog eyeing a freshly mown lawn.
The original backlash against them for the African formula issue you would think is not only “ancient” history, but borderline urban myth. Not only is it true, they are still at it.
Despite WHO saying “infants who are not breastfed in the first month of life may be as much as 25 times more likely to die than infants who are exclusively breastfed”, Nestle continue to aggressively market their formula as an alternative.
Read on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N.....milk_issue
This is a company that rejects compliance at every turn and regards corporate responsibility as an ludicrous impediment to profit. When WHO have to put out a paper that “CALLS UPON infant food manufacturers and distributors to comply fully with their responsibilities under the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes and subsequent relevant World Health Assembly resolutions;” and Nestle are the main offender- well fuck them really. What else can you say? Their practices lead to the death of infants in 2011.
So I say unto Australia regulators; step on these bottom feeders.
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Someone needs to teach our good friends at ZenithOptimedia how to use holdings.
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@ Ox – not hard is it?
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A condition of Australian free to air broadcasters holding a license is screening a certain amount of children’s content, as defined by the Children Television Standards (2009) as part of the Broadcasting Services Act. All this content must receive a ‘C’ classification from ACMA – including advertisements. It can be an issue for networks to fill these ad slots as so few advertisers submit their ads for the ‘c’ classification – the children’s audience numbers are too small. I’m not a fan of nestle but I’m not sure how this is their fault – they didn’t ask for the ad to be shown in this slot. The issue is with the network that screened it – it’s their business to know how to comply with the regulations that allow them to broadcast.
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This is clearly an error from the station and one that no-one involved wanted to happen (i.e. it was unintentional.) October 23 was a Saturday morning, so maybe this spot wasn’t included in Holdings on Friday morning (i.e it was placed as bonus on Friday post Holdings being loaded)
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this is a Network traffic issue, probably just basic human error. They should know Nestle cant appear in kids time slots. someone just didnt check properly.
Downside here is if there are written proceedures in place for this and the Networks traffic system falls over then they should be held responsible… not the client.
upside? Bet nestle have bucket loads of bonus as compensation… if they dont they need a new media agency.
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