ASA Adjudication on InBev UK Ltd

Ad

A TV ad for Stella Artois; text on screen corresponded to a male voice-over, which stated “In the year 1366 people feared terrible dangers, they believed the earth was flat …”. The on-screen text was replaced by images, which reflected the words of the voice-over; it continued “ … and the sun set into the sea. So when the citizens of Leuven set out to create the perfect beer, they risked all to gather the ingredients … ”. Further on-screen text stated “The finest hops; The purest water; Maize and malted barley”. The voice-over then stated “ … and today the beer still contains only the same four precious ingredients. Dare you brave the dangers they faced? Take the challenge of 1366 … ”. The ad ended with an image of a glass of beer and the Stella Artois logo was shown.

Issue

A viewer, who saw the ad on Film4 immediately after the film 'Dunston Checks In', complained that an ad for an alcohol product was unsuitable for broadcast adjacent to a family film, which was likely to appeal particularly to audiences below the age of 18.

BCAP TV Code

BCAP TV Scheduling Code

Response

InBev UK said the ad was shown immediately after the film without their permission and that Channel Four had accepted responsibility for the error.  They said InBev UK took scheduling very seriously; they monitored their airtime to ensure ads were not seen during childrens programming and provided guidance to all commercial operations and partners to help promote their brands in a fully responsible manner.  

Channel Four said, due to an error, a restriction on alcohol advertising had not been applied to breaks in or adjacent to the broadcast of Dunston Checks In.  They said they had added an extra check to the process to ensure that this did not happen again.

Assessment

Upheld

The ASA noted InBev UKs comments and understood that the ad had been broadcast immediately after Dunston Checks In as the result of an error.

We referred to the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice (BCAP) rules on the scheduling of television advertisements, which stated that ads for alcohol products, which contained more than 1.2% alcohol by volume, such as Stella Artois, should not be broadcast in or adjacent to programmes likely to have particular appeal to audiences below 18 years of age.    

We checked the Broadcasters' Audience Research Board (BARB) figures for the film and noted a high proportion of children aged 10 to 15 years were watching.  We considered the film did have particular appeal to this age group and concluded that an appropriate timing restriction had not been applied on this occasion.  We welcomed the action taken by Channel Four to prevent the same thing happening in future.

The ad breached CAP (Broadcast) TV Advertising Standards Code rule 7.4.7 (Use of scheduling restrictions) and TV Scheduling Code rule 4.2.1 (a) (i) (Children and young people).

Action

We told Channel Four to ensure they took more care when scheduling alcohol ads in the future.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Broadcast)