No new ban on baby milk adverts

[WendyWeber]

Bugger

And after all that Jordan fuss.

Doesn't it, though

hmm - under the new regulations that SMA ad (you know - the one with the dad going on about how great he is ) would be illegal because it's not clear that the product is for older children, which was the whole problem.

Ugh, DP saw the SMA advert and asked me 'didn't you say it is illegal to advertise formula milk' and I ahd to explain to him that 'SMA PROGRESS' isn't for newborn babies, if he didn't realsie from that advert than many many more people will do the exact same, and if someone goes to buy formula milk after that advert and sees the age on sma progress you can guarantee they see the other types of babymilk that are on the shelf right next to it.

Of course people have the right to formula feed but the law is there for a reason.

i understand about the non advertising of fm but when i couldnt feed dd at 6 weeks i changed to formula i had no clue which one to use as hv kind of shrugged her shoulders and said whichever i had intended to bf forever but it didnt work so i hadnt reaseached any formula
had not seen any ads so how was i supposed to make a choice? in the end i got cow and gate as this is what i remember my mom giving my lil sis

Thing is dd666, the adverts aren't actually helping you know which is better, they are just trying to get someone to buy their products, you're more likely to find out which milk is best by trial and error or friends recc's.

All adverts do is show what they consider their good points and selling points, not true comparison with other products.

There should be more info on formula available from, for example, your health visitor so those who choose to/have to FF can get as much info as possible, it would probably be easy enoguh for someone who ahs done a study of formula milks and their different benefits to draw up a list of points, pros and cons that could be given to a new mother when she asks her health visitor for advice, or in the hospital if she informs them she wants to ff.

i dont have that prob anymore as dd has cows milk (18mo)

Apparently the ASA is still investigating complaints about the SMA ad, according to the letter they sent me. They're taking their time about it...

Good. I find it offensive in the extreme that the powers that be consider that we are all so stupid that we will bottle feed because we see adverts for follow on milk. Women bottle feed for millions of reasons and advertising simply is not one of them. Advertising builds brand awareness so if you choose to bottle feed you may use a particular brand of milk because of the advertising you have seen. I do not believe for a minute that anyone thinks " I saw an advert for Hipp, it must be better than breast milk, I won't breastfeed." Complete tripe. Women are not that stupid.

I do understand that there may be confusion between infant milk and follow on milk but that is a different issue - that's about people buying the right product, not about making people formula feed instead of breastfeed. I don't have an issue with tightening the rules to make it clearer that follow on milks are for 6 months and up. But bans achieve nothing.

The thing that bugs me about the rules is that you can't get loyalty card points on infant milks - it seems a bit daft - you' going to buy the milk regardless of whether you get your Tesco clubcard points or not....

to be honest, I really don't see why the formula comapnies are not allowed to advertise their products for newborns. I find it really patronising and silly - surely we don't need to be protected from these advertisements? It's highly unlikely that anyone who is really keen to breastfeed would change her mind about it because of seeing an ad. For those of us who are using formula, a ban just makes me feel like it's a TERRIBLE thing that I'm doing and the tin of SMA really should be wrapped in brown paper like it's prohibition or soemthing!

Follow-on milk is a marketing con, invented purely to get round the advertising ban. It is designed to get the brand across to new mothers.

Why do you think firms spend billions of pounds on advertising? Because it works. Comparing formula to b/m and saying 'closest to' convinces people that there's not much difference - do an archive search here and see how many people have been told by relatives that 'it's just the same'.

Information about which formula milk to use should be neutral and provided by health profs. But they can't because the formula companies would sue their arses off if they dared to say 'this one's not as good as this one'. And I'm not sure there's any actual evidence to say one is better than another, anyway.