The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has asked Kellogg’s to remove a ‘misleading’ promotional page that used ‘unauthorised specific health claims’.
The banned website advertisement featured text that read “Prebiotic” and “Prebiotic goodness to fuel your gut”, along with other health claims such as “Chicory root fibre contributes to normal bowel function by increasing stool frequency” and “nourishing your gut microbiota”.
Despite Kellogg’s explaining prebiotics were a non-digestible food ingredient that could deliver beneficial effects on health, the advertising regulatory body ruled that the CAP code only permitted such advertising claims if they were accompanied by a specific authorised health claim.
The ASA ruling follows other previously removed Kellogg ads in recent years, including a 2019 advert which “exaggerated the health benefits” of Special K’s folic acid ingredient in benefitting pregnancy.
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In addition, wording of the ad’s claim about chicory inulin raised concerns over the percentage of daily required of the product to become beneficial compared to the quantity that would be gained from a reasonable quantity of Kellogg’s product, with the ASA ruling the claims as not meeting the code’s condition.
Expanding upon its decision, the ASA also pointed out that the cereal brand’s claim, “’helping support digestive health by increasing levels of important bacteria living in your gut’, had not established that increasing levels of certain bacteria in the gut was beneficial to digestive health”.
“We’re disappointed with this ruling as it may restrict people’s knowledge about the positive ingredients which are in our foods,” a Kellogg’s spokesperson told Marketing Beat.
“People in Britain are eating less fibre than they should and so we wanted to tell them about the prebiotic benefits of the chicory root fibre in this cereal. Nonetheless, we respect this ruling and won’t use this advert on our website again.”
More recent campaigns by the cereal brand have, however, managed to escape the scrutiny of the ASA, including Kellogg’s recent celebration of 25 years of its Breakfast Club with a ‘Better days are built on breakfast‘ advert.
