Water Ad Not So Innocent

The Advertising Standards Authority has told a bottled water marketer that its advertising campaign is misleading after its ad for This Water failed to disclose that one of the ingredients in the flavored beverage is added sugar. Said the ASA in part,

The ASA noted This Water’s argument that the ads highlighted the fact that fruit and water were the key ingredients in the drinks, not the only ingredients. We acknowledged that the full list of ingredients was available on the products’ labels and on This Water’s website, and we also noted the documents about sugar that they had provided. Nevertheless, we considered that the use of the term “simple”, alongside the text “water from a spring” and “fruit from the trees” linked by arrows to the picture of the product, implied that the drink was simple because it contained water and fruit only.

We understood that the type of sugar that had been added to the drinks was refined, white, granulated sugar. We noted from the recipe breakdown submitted by This Water that added sugar constituted 8% of the Lemons and Limes drink and 10% of the Mangoes and Passion Fruit drink and Pomegranates, Lychees and Blackcurrants drink. We understood therefore that the standard 420 ml bottle of the product contained between 33.6 g and 42 g of added sugar, depending on the flavour of the drink. We considered that most consumers would not expect such a product, when described as “simple, natural”, to contain added refined sugars. Because of that, and because we considered that the ads implied that the drinks contained fruit and water only, we concluded that the ads were misleading.

The ads breached CAP Code clause 7.1 (Truthfulness).

Action
The ads must not appear again in their current form. We advised This Water to contact the CAP Copy Advice team for guidance when preparing future similar ads.

Read more here.