KEY POINTS:
Seldom has a case of commercial chicanery been exposed as delightfully as that of the sugar drink Ribena. The discovery that the syrup produced by multinational GlaxoSmithKline contains not a trace of vitamin C came from a school science project by two 14-year-olds at Pakuranga College, Anna Devathasan and Jenny Suo.
They tested various fruit juices for vitamin C and initially distrusted their Ribena result because the container said, "The blackcurrants in Ribena have four times the vitamin C of oranges". When they phoned the manufacturer they were told, "It's the blackcurrants that have it". With admirable curiosity they took their findings to the Advertising Standards Authority, the television show Fair Go and the Commerce Commission, which brought a prosecution.
Delightful as the story may be, the Auckland District Court treated the case with due seriousness yesterday when GlaxoSmithKline pleaded guilty to 15 representative charges covering offences between 2002 and 2006. The manufacturer admitted its cartoned Ready To Drink Ribena, which claimed 7mg of Vitamin C per 100ml, in fact had no detectable Vitamin C content, and admitted its advertisements were misleading.
The Commerce Commission wanted a fine between $275,000 and $350,000 and corrective television advertising. The judge settled for a $217,000 impost.
The Ribena case ranks as one of the worst instances of misleading advertising because it leaves no room for the customer to suspect it is not what it claims. The more usual cases prosecuted by the Commerce Commission have involved misleading prices, such as airline fares and real estate asking prices, that might not fool the sophisticated customer.
People might be annoyed, but not surprised, to find an airline fare excluded tax and other charges, or that an agent had listed a house at a price lower than the seller would accept. But these sort of offences mislead the prospective buyer only to the point of sale. Once the real price is discovered, the customer can back out.
A misleading label on food or drink is much more insidious. It normally makes a scientific or technical claim for its ingredients or manufacture that the customer has no reason to doubt. Unlike an understated airline fare or house price, the mislabelled consumable may be bought and used on misinformation. Unlike a cellphone contract with hidden charges, for example, consumable purchases are unlikely to be returned.
Somebody in Ribena's marketing must have imagined they were very clever. They would carefully cite the vitamin content of blackcurrants but not of the drink. Now that the deception has been discovered they have succeeded not only in exposing the complete absence of vitamins in the concoction but also, it seems to follow, an absence of blackcurrants. Whatever is in the carton besides dissolved sugar and flavoured water it is not something the makers want to promote.
Advertising enjoys a great deal of latitude from reasonable consumers. We forgive the fantastic descriptions and non-provable superlatives but when statements pose as plain fact, advertisers must be careful.
Thanks to the diligence of the two Pakuranga College pupils, the world's second-largest food and pharmaceutical manufacturer has been brought to its knees here and in Australia, where it has owned up to the Ribena deception. The case deserves to be noted by advertisers everywhere; when their claims are too clever by half they risk leaving their market with a sour taste.
