Ben & Jerry ads banned by ASA from being too close to school

Ben and Jerry were ordered to remove two ice cream ads after the guard dogs decided they were too close to the schools.

The ads promoted the brand's Moophoria Light ice cream, which has fewer calories than its normal flavors. One was placed less than 100 meters from a high school and the other on a wall near a primary school.

This proximity prompted the charity Children's Food Campaign to complain that the company, whose ice creams are high in sugar and fat, specifically promoted the product to children.

After reviewing the complaint, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) stated that the positioning of posters in schools was "probably meant that the advertising audience was heavily skewed in favor of the under-16s and was therefore directed to children because of the context in which they were broadcast ".

The ASA concluded that the publication of both ads violated the rules set out in its code, which states that ads for high-fat, low-sugar or high-salt (HFSS) products should not be directed to children.

"We told Unilever UK [which owns Ben & Jerry’s] to make sure that they take steps in the future to make sure that HFSS product listings are not posted near a school. "

Unilever denied that his promotions deliberately targeted children and declared himself "disappointed" that their posters were mistakenly placed near schools.

The company added that measures would be taken to prevent similar mistakes from happening again in the future.

The move follows a similar incident in March when Transport for London rejected a subway announcement because it contained bacon, butter and jam and was therefore against TfL's new anti-junk food advertising policies. .

At the time, a spokesman for TfL said that his new policies, enforced by London Mayor Sadiq Khan, require brands to show that the products featured in advertisements designed to run on his network "do not contain not a lot of fat, sugar and salt "unless they got an exception.

They added that the guidelines were being applied to combat rising rates of childhood obesity in cities.

"Childhood obesity in London is a serious problem," they said. "Nearly 40% of children ages 10 and 11 are overweight or obese, one of the highest rates in Europe. This prohibition is designed to reduce children's exposure to advertising for food and beverages, which could contribute to this problem. "