Ad description
A TV ad for Birds Eye 'Stir Your Senses' ready-made meals, seen on 24 January 2016, featured a man and woman in the kitchen heating one of the range's pasta products on the stove. A pack was seen next to the stove. The ad featured images of two other products in the range being stirred in frying pans. In another scene, a woman was seen sitting down to eat one of the products from a bowl.
Issue
The complainant challenged whether the ad was misleading, because it exaggerated the portion size of the product.
Response
Nomad Foods Europe Ltd t/a Birds Eye explained that, in the opening scene, the pack shown next to the pan, was the Tagliatelle con Porcini product. They explained that it, like the other meals in the range, was a single serve product for adults. They pointed out that the ad showed two adults in the kitchen while the tagliatelle was being prepared. They said that because it was a single serve product, consumers would expect more than one pack of the product to be prepared to feed the couple. They had used one portion of the product for the bowl scenes to ensure they did not exaggerate the 'one portion' when someone was seen eating on their own. However, they had used slightly more for the pan shots to bring life to the ingredients and to reflect the two person occasion dramatised in the opening scene.
Clearcast said they cleared the script at pre-production stage with the proviso that the advertiser took care to accurately represent the contents of one standard pack and that the quantity and quality of the product was not exaggerated. They said they were under the impression that when they received the finished ad, the guidance had been followed and they approved the ad on that basis.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA noted that the opening scene showed a couple preparing the product, and that only one pack was shown. At the end of the ad, the same couple were briefly shown sitting at the table eating. We considered that consumers were likely to interpret that to mean that the amounts shown in the ad were equivalent to one packet of the product.
We understood from the advertiser that slightly more than one packet was used in the pan shots in the ad, but that only one packet was used for the bowl shots. We purchased the Tagliatelle con Porcini product and cooked it according to the instructions on the packet. We considered that both the pan and bowl shots in the ad appeared to contain more pasta and mushrooms when compared to one real-life serving (one packet) of the product. Because of that, and because viewers were likely to expect the amounts shown in the ad to be equivalent to one packet of the product, but that was not always the case, we concluded that the ad exaggerated the portion size of the product and was therefore misleading.
The ad breached BCAP Code rule 3.1 3.1 Advertisements must not materially mislead or be likely to do so. (Misleading advertising).
Action
The ad must not be broadcast again in its current form. We told Nomad Foods Europe Ltd not to exaggerate the portion sizes of their products in future.
