ASA: McCain campaign 'Eat your greens' not misleading.

The UK advertising watchdog (ASA) investigated the McCain Foods (GB) "Eat your greens"campaign for McCain Rustic Oven Fries and found the campaign was "not irresponsible or misleading".

The campaign features the slogan "Eat your greens"referring to the fact that McCain Rustic Oven Fries score green in the FSA traffic light system for each of the categories "LOW FAT", "LOW SATURATES""LOW SUGAR"and "LOW SALT". McCain claims that Rustic Oven fries are the first french fries to score 4 green lights.

According to the ASA, nine complainants challenged the ad to be misleading and irresponsible, because they believed the reference to "greens"implied that oven chips were a green vegetable and could be counted as one of a person's recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables a day.

The ASA Assessment:

The ASA noted McCain's argument that the "Eat your greens"claim referred to the fact that Rustic Oven Chips had four green traffic light symbols in accordance with the FSA's traffic light labelling scheme, and not that Rustic Oven Chips could be consumed as part of a person's recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables a day. We understood that the FSA's traffic light labelling scheme was designed to help consumers make a healthier choice between similar products, by providing at-a-glance information about the amounts of fat, saturated fat, sugar and salt in a particular food product.

We considered that most consumers were aware of the traffic light labelling scheme, and that it rated foods that were low in a particular nutrient with a green light, foods that were high in a particular nutrient with a red light, and foods that did not have a high or low level of a particular nutrient with an amber light.

We considered that the prominence of the four green traffic lights in the ad, directly below the headline claim, made it clear that the statement "Eat your greens"referred to those green traffic lights, and we also considered that that was emphasised by the fact that the traffic lights were highlighted in green and displayed the text "LOW FAT", "LOW SATURATES""LOW SUGAR"and "LOW SALT".

We acknowledged that some consumers might understand the term "greens"to refer to vegetables in general, and by extension the government's recommendation of five portions of fruit and vegetables per day. However, we noted that the ad did not make any reference to the Department of Health's '5 A Day' Campaign, or suggest that consumers should replace one of their daily portions of fruit or vegetables with a portion of oven chips.

Because of that, and because we considered that the overall message of the ad was that McCain Rustic Oven Chips were low in fat, saturates, sugar and salt according to the FSA traffic light labelling system, we concluded that the ad was not irresponsible or misleading.