ASA Adjudication on Brooke Hospital for Animals

Ad

A national press insert, for the Brooke Hospital for Animals, featured an image of a donkey and a child with text that stated "A donkey in pain A child in poverty Now there's one charity that can help them both The Brooke The animal charity that helps people too". The ad referred twice to the charity's "unique approach" and claimed "you don't have to choose to help one or the other - every working animal you help also benefits 5 people". The ad went on to explain that the Brooke provided veterinary care for working animals and education programmes for their owners; the donation form stated "Yes, I want to help working animals - and the families who depend on them".

Issue

The complainant objected that the ad was misleading because it implied that the Brooke Hospital for Animals was the only charity that both treated animals and supported their owners.  She named several other charities that she believed operated in that way.

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

The Brooke Hospital for Animals (Brooke) said the insert was not designed to suggest that they were the only charity that helped animals and the people who relied on them. The Brooke said the headline "Donkey in pain, child in poverty - now theres one charity that can help them both" formed part of a wider campaign to show the interdependence between working equines specifically and humans. The headline was based on research with charity-giving members of the public and an online survey, and represented the idea, very new to most research respondents, that one donation to one charity could help two beneficiaries and that they did not have to choose between helping people and helping animals.  They argued that the ad did not claim or imply that they were the only charity to both treat animals and support their owners.  They maintained, however, that they were the only charity in their sector where a donation could be guaranteed to "help both" working draft equine animals and the poor people who relied on them.

Brooke argued that the use of the word "unique" in that context was used to mean special or unusual. Their research showed that people in their target audience found the idea of helping both exciting, different, special and unusual.  They said the helping of animals and people at the same time in an overseas development context was viewed as unusual and/or special in Brookes research, which showed that it was a noteworthy and new concept for the vast majority of those interviewed, who had in the past always felt they had to choose between helping animals or people. Brooke said their work could be described as special and unusual relative to the total number of animal welfare organisations and overseas development charities, because their work helped both working equine animals and people through working with communities in the developing world. Most charities helped either animals (of one species or many) or people.

Brooke responded to specific points made by the complainant by confirming that their primary purpose was helping working equines; they said working equines were the type of animals that the insert and wider campaign focused on.  They said a number of human overseas development charities provided livestock to poor communities to improve the lives of people, but did not actively aim to improve the lives of animals, which was the starting point for Brooke's work, goals and impact.  Similarly, some organisations such as Veterinaires Sans Frontieres, cited by the complainant, focused on keeping livestock healthy because of the benefit to people, but very few charities focused on draft working animals.  

Brooke said charities such as SPANA, The Donkey Sanctuary and WSPA, also cited by the complainant, all undertook additional projects and programmes that benefitted other types of animal than working animals and donations would therefore not always help animal owners at the same time.  As evidence to support that Brooke cited SPANA's Annual Report for 2008, according to which one quarter of the animals helped by SPANA were animals other than working equines.  They added that other charities spent half of their funds on UK- and ROI-based donkey care that did not "help both" equines and poor owners.  Brooke maintained that, additionally, the scale of their impact, work and goals, with the stated aim of reaching five million animals across nine countries each year, was unique.  They said they were the first and only organisation to aim to rise to that challenging number, which they had been promoting since 2004/2005.  They added that at the time the leaflet appeared they were reaching 700,000 working horses and donkeys every year overseas, compared to SPANA and The Donkey Sanctuary, which, Brooke believed, reached 330,000 and 300,000 respectively in their international work.   

They pointed out that the research process for the campaign had involved in-depth interviews with current long-term Brooke supporters, who were very aware of other similar charities, and at no point had they expressed concern that the "Help Both" insert was misleading or in any way detrimental to other charities in the field.  

They said their concentrated approach of mixing immediate direct, emergency help with employing local people and undertaking education, research and advocacy for future long-term change to help suffering animals and benefit poor people was also unique in the sense of special or unusual.  They cited other charities whose remit was restricted to one country.

In response to an undated Brooke press release, cited by the complainant, that mentioned relief efforts in Pakistan and stated "Any animal in need is assured of care and attention", Brooke asserted that they were an equine welfare charity and, at the time the ad appeared, would not have described themselves only as "predominantly" an equine welfare charity as stated in the press release, which they asserted was produced pre-2001. They said they were not an organisation that focused on disaster relief; however, in an emergency, Brookes vets would help animals that required emergency care.

In response to the complainant's point that the claim "Now there's one charity that can help them both" implied that Brooke was the first charity to operate in that particular field, Brooke pointed out that the ad clearly stated when the Brooke was established (1934).  They argued that the claim did not mean that the Brooke had only been in existence from very recently, but, rather, reflected the fact that readers were likely to have no awareness of Brooke, the role of working animals or the scale of contribution, or the fact that animals and people could be helped at the same time.  They added that the Oxford English Dictionary also defined that "now" could be used to draw attention to something and that it created a sense of urgency around the idea that the child was in poverty and the donkey in pain, and they needed help "now".  They pointed out that the leaflet also stated "Right now, poor people are struggling ... while millions of people are suffering.  Now, you don't have to choose to help one or the other.  Brooke said the third definition was "used in a request, instruction or question" and pointed out that a prominent part of the design in the leaflet was a stamp that included the call to action "ACT NOW - animals and people are suffering".   

Assessment

THIS ADJUDICATION REPLACES THAT PUBLISHED ON 18 FEBRUARY 2009. THE VERDICT HAS CHANGED, MAKING THE COMPLAINT UPHELD.

Upheld

The ASA noted several charities helped both animals and people, but that Brooke felt they were uniquely placed because the sole focus of their work was the provision of veterinary care to working equines and the education of their owners, on a large and international scale; we noted, although in the past Brooke's vets had helped other types of animal in disaster zones, those were not permanent projects and at the time the ad appeared disaster relief represented a very small proportion of their expenditure.

We noted the ad included images of equine animals and made some specific references to donkeys and horses (and did not mention or show other types of animals) but that other parts of the ad just referred to helping working animals in general; for example, text under the image of a donkey and a child stated "The animal charity that helps people too" and text under the heading "Our simple, unique approach" stated "... The Brooke's vets and animal health experts save working animals from suffering ...". 

We considered that the impression of the ad as a whole was that Brooke helped animals and people; not that it helped just equine animals and people. We also considered that the claim "now there's one charity that can help them both", in conjunction with the text "The animal charity that helps people too" immediately underneath, implied Brooke was a new charity that had recently been set up and it was the first such charity to help both people and animals.  We noted that was not the case and that Brooke had been set up in 1934 and that there were other charities that helped people and animals, including those that helped equine animals and people, albeit not in exactly the same manner. 

Although we noted Brooke's reasons for claiming to be unique, we considered that the ad did not make those reasons clear and that the overall impression of the ad was that Brooke were the only charity to help both people and animals at the same time. Because that was not the case, we concluded that the ad was likely to mislead.

The ad breached CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation), 7.1 (Truthfulness) and 19.1 (Other comparisons).

Action

The ad must not appear again in its current form.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)