ASA Adjudication on Home Office

Ad

a. A radio ad for alcohol awareness featured women ordering drinks in various social or relaxing at home situations, identifying their drinks by the number of alcohol units they contained in each case. "A large glass of three units. Great idea. Nice and chilled;" "Bottle of 10 units;" "I'll have a large two units and tonic please" and "Pour me a glass of two units would you love." The ad ended with "Did you know that if women regularly exceed two to three units a day it could add up to a serious health problem? Units. They all add up. To find out more, go to ..." A website address followed.

b. A second radio ad featured men in similar situations: "A pint of two units in there please and two units for yourself;" "There you are sir, another glass of three units;" "My shout - pints of three units all round lads" and "A nice bottle of chilled 10 units." The ad ended with "Did you know that if men regularly exceed three to four units a day it could add up to a serious health problem? Units. They all add up. To find out more go to ..." A website address followed.

c. A TV ad followed a woman as she ordered drinks including a gin and tonic and white, rose and red wine in various situations over the course of a week. In each case, the number of units the drinks contained was shown. The shape of the slice of lime in the gin and tonic showed two units; writing in condensation on the side of a glass of white wine and in the light shining through a glass of rose wine showed three units and the label on the side of a bottle of wine showed ten units. Voiceover at the end of the ad stated "Did you know that if women regularly exceed two to three units a day it could add up to a serious health problem? Units. They all add up." Large text in the centre of the screen stated "Units. They all add up." The NHS logo was shown in the top right hand corner. A logo that stated "Alcohol - Know Your Limits" and a NHS website address were shown in the bottom right hand corner of the screen.

d. A second TV ad followed a man in a similar way. Bubbles inside a pint of beer showed two units; condensation on the side of a glass of white wine showed three units; writing in foam on the side of a pint of lager showed three units and the label on the side of a bottle of red wine showed 10 units. Voiceover at the end of the ad stated "Did you know that if men regularly exceed three to four units a day it could add up to a serious health problem? Units. They all add up." Large text in the centre of the screen stated "Units. They all add up." Text and logos were shown as in ad (c).

Issue

A listener challenged whether:

1. The claim "Did you know that if women regularly exceed two to three units a day it could add up to a serious health problem?" in ad (a), and

2. "Did you know that if men regularly exceed three to four units a day it could add up to a serious health problem?" in ad (b) were misleading and could be substantiated, and were true for individuals who consumed one unit only over the maximum recommended guidelines and who also had no other contributory factors such as obesity, smoking, poor diet or lack or exercise.

A viewer challenged whether:

3. The claim "Did you know that if women regularly exceed two to three units a day it could add up to a serious health problem?" in ad (c), and

4.  "Did you know that if men regularly exceed three to four units a day it could add up to a serious health problem?" in ad (d) were misleading and could be substantiated.

BCAP TV Code

BCAP Radio Code

Response

1., 2., 3. and 4.  The Department of Health (DH) said the Government's current sensible drinking guidelines were published following DH's 1995 report "Sensible Drinking."  They said the report drew upon a wide range of research, epidemiological evidence and expert advice, including reports by various Royal Colleges, in considering the relative risks and potential benefits of alcohol consumption to health and mortality.  They said the report discussed evidence and expert consensus and described the basis for the recommendations.  They said the Government's recommendations, following the report, included that men should not regularly drink more than three to four units of alcohol per day and that women should not regularly drink more than two to three units of alcohol per day.  DH said their response was intended to answer the question raised in the complaints as to what serious health problems men and women who regularly exceeded the recommended guidelines by a small amount only, but who did not have other contributory factors, were likely to develop.  DH said the data on risk levels used in "Sensible Drinking" (and consequently in the Government's current sensible drinking guidelines) included data drawn from internationally recognised population studies and was therefore applied as relative risks in the whole population and not just to the specific groups cited by the complainants.  DH supplied information that showed a recent expert summary of the relative risks of developing a number of conditions at particular levels of alcohol intake, calculated from published epidemiological research evidence.  DH said the relative risks tended to increase progressively with increasing levels of alcohol consumption, which they believed underpinned the case for advising those who chose to drink that there was a progressive increase in risk of serious harm associated with drinking above lower risk levels on a regular basis.

DH said the ads complained of were part of the first phase of the awareness campaign and were designed to raise awareness of the Government's sensible drinking guidelines and the number of units present in various alcoholic drinks.  The first phase was followed by ads which focussed on a number of serious risks associated with regularly exceeding recommended guidelines, including liver disease, high blood pressure and breast cancer.  DH said the tone in each phase was intended to be conversational rather than accusatory.  They believed it was important to note that the claims were worded conditionally ("... could add up to a serious health problem") and that the ads referred listeners and viewers to a website for more information.  DH said the ads were supported by broader media awareness of the sensible drinking guidelines and by a number of initiatives designed to support the NHS, health professionals and other stakeholders.  They said that, while evidence on alcohol-related accidents underpinned sensible drinking messages, the ads did not focus specifically on accidents.

1. and 2.  The Radio Advertising Clearance Centre (RACC) added that, provided the content of the radio ads was accurate, which they believed it was, they did not believe the ads needed to specify which particular health problems consumers were at risk from or that they needed to include or specify alcohol-related accidents.  They believed the conditional wording ("... could add up to a serious health problem") highlighted the potential risk only.

3. and 4.  Clearcast said they agreed with and endorsed the advertiser's response.  They supplied evidence provided by the advertising agency at pre-production stage which described Government and NHS recommendations and which included information which stated the increase in risk of developing a number of serious health problems that those who regularly drank more than the maximum daily amount had been found to have.  Clearcast said a deciding factor in them clearing the TV ads was that the ads did not state conclusively that regularly exceeding the recommended daily amount would lead to health problems.  They said they felt the ads were more concerned with raising awareness of the number of units in alcoholic drinks and how easy it was for those units to build up rather than saying people should definitely not exceed the recommended daily amount.

Assessment

1, 2., 3. and 4.  Not upheld

The ASA noted that the maximum recommended levels of two to three units of alcohol per day for women and three to four per day for men reflected the UK Government's sensible drinking guidelines which in turn reflected the recommendations of DH's 1995 report "Sensible Drinking."  We noted that the data the "Sensible Drinking" report drew on comprised scientific, peer reviewed articles and research which compared the relative risk for women and men who drank no alcohol at all with that of women who drank two and a half units of alcohol per day and men who drank five units of alcohol per day.  Taking the risk of men and women who drank no alcohol at all as "1," DH found an increased risk of between 1.2 and 2.5 for men and 1.2 and 1.7 for women of developing health problems such as hypertension, haemorrhagic stroke, cirrhosis of the liver and the following alcohol-related cancers: mouth, oesophagus, larynx, colo-rectum, liver and female breast.  Although the data did not show that consumption of any amount in excess of the recommended guidelines would automatically result in serious health problems such as those mentioned above, it was, nevertheless, scientific, peer reviewed data that showed that the higher the amount of alcohol in excess of the recommended guidelines that was consumed, the greater the likelihood that the consumer could develop a serious health condition.  Because the claims were phrased conditionally (if women regularly exceeded two to three units of alcohol per day or if men regularly exceeded three to four units of alcohol per day "it could add up to a serious health problem"), we concluded that the ads referred to the potential risk only of developing serious health conditions, the likelihood of which the evidence showed increased the higher the amount of alcohol in excess of the recommended guidelines that was consumed.  We therefore concluded listeners and viewers would not be misled by the claims.

On points 1. and 2. we investigated the radio ads under CAP (Broadcast) Radio Advertising Standards Code Section 2, rule 3 (Misleadingness) and Section 3, rule 4.2 (Advertisers, Treatments, Products, Services and Claims) but did not find them in breach.

On points 3. and 4. we investigated the TV ads under CAP (Broadcast) TV Advertising Standards Code rules 5.1.1 (Misleading advertising), 5.2.1 (Evidence) and 8.1.1 (Medicines, treatments, health claims and nutrition - assessment of claims) but did not find them in breach.

Action

No further action necessary.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Broadcast)