Cow & Gate advert banned for iron claims

[MumOfEmily]

Thought you might be interested to hear that an advert for Cow & Gate Complete Care Growing Up Milk has just been banned for misleading viewers about how much iron toddlers need to eat to prevent development problems.

You know the one with the 12L jug of cows milk? Even though cows milk is not a good source of iron and your toddler would hopefully be getting all the iron they need from other good sources of iron...

I'm very pleased about this as that ad really annoyed me! And I have a friend who gave up bf at 6 months partly because she was worried her ds wouldn't get enough iron unless he had follow-on milk...

Thanks for the link FrozenNorth - have just emailed them to.

I AM SOOO GLAD ABOUT THIS!!

I sy to DH everytime that that advert makes it look like you have to give your kids gallons of cows milk to get the iron they need when you can get it from countless other sources much easier.

Halle-fucking- luja!

The shit thing about those type of adverts is that there will be someone somewhere who doesn't have the correct information and ends up being guided by it!

I have just recieved a money off token from boots advantage card for money off Cow & Gate follow on milk. does anyone know if this is a breech of the marketing regulations? As if it is I would like to complain. Sorry to veer off topic.

Oh thank god. I complained when I first saw it. Stupid advert (ever heard of broccoli?).

I thought they were allowed to reduce, give vouchers out, give loyalty points etc for follow on milk but not infant formula.

"I thought they were allowed to reduce, give vouchers out, give loyalty points etc for follow on milk but not infant formula."

Yeah, which is pretty much why follow-on milk was invented, isn't it?

This is the reply I received (to the letter) when I emailed them to ask if they will publish a retraction.

"Thank you for your email. The advert will not be broadcast again in its current form."

That was it, pretty rubbish customer service huh? No mention of a retraction.

Wow - that's really not a helpful response at all! Surely the company should have a better-oiled PR machine than that to deal with complaints/feedback?

I found out the other day that C&G are still using the advert in other formats as my friend received a mailshot from them which contained the same basic advert. I guess that particular format hasn't been banned, so that's ok.

Yes it's pathetic. I wonder if I should tackle them again?

Has anyone noticed that this ad is being shown again?

yh i saw it the other day

Just saw it a few minutes ago on ITV -think some of the wording was changed though from the original.

I noticed it said the milk was for 1 year olds plus. I am surprised they are allowed to harp on about the 'iron' still. Are they still breaking any advertising rules?

It was on Channel 4 last night as well, I think the wording had changed.

It still had the big beaker of cow milk though and went on about how hard it was to get iron into a toddler etc. Also showed logo for their 'Big Iron Count' website.

I saw it recently and couldn't spot anything that had changed.
It's still misleading, IMHO.

what?! it's still on?!

FFS I saw this advert on 5 yesterday during milkshake

I THOUGHT it had been banned!

I saw it last night during x factor...

yes I have seen it too, infact I commented to DH the other night that I thought it had been banned. I wondered if wording was changed, but I didn't notice any difference.