Brewdog advert claiming that fruity beers are 'one of your five a day' pulled following customer complaint

7 December 2022, 10:36 | Updated: 7 December 2022, 10:53

Brewdog has been banned from using an advert that claims that fruit-flavoured beers are one of your five pieces of fruit and vegetables a day.

The brewer made the claim in the subject line of an email to customers from July 20.

The email was promoting beers with names like Lost In Guava, Pineapple Punch, and Lost In Lychee & Lime.

A customer complained to the advertising watchdog that the claim was misleading.

Brewdog acknowledged that the beer did not count as one of people's five a day.

However, it said it believed recipients would generally understand that alcoholic beverages are not equivalent to portions of fruit or vegetables.

The brewer said the email was only sent to existing customers, who were likely to be aware of BrewDog's "playful" marketing style, and therefore felt that recipients were even more likely to recognise "One of your five a day" as a "tongue-in-cheek remark".

But, upholding the complaint, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) noted that government guidelines recommend people eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day.

"The ASA acknowledged that the subject heading 'One of your five a day' might be interpreted by some consumers as a humorous nod to the fruit-flavoured beers featured in the body of the email," the regulator said.

"However, because the claim referred to well-known government advice on health and wellbeing, we considered that, in general, consumers would not expect advertisers to include such claims unless the advertised product was recognised as meeting the requirements of that advice.

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"We therefore considered consumers were likely to interpret the claim 'One of your five a day' to mean that the fruit-flavoured beers in the ad's body copy counted towards the recommended five daily portions of fruit and vegetables," the ASA said.

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"Because alcoholic drinks did not count towards a person's 'five a day', we concluded that the claim was misleading."

The ASA ruled that the ad must not appear again, adding: "We told BrewDog to ensure that their future ads did not misleadingly imply that alcoholic beverages counted towards the five daily portions of fruit and vegetables recommended by government guidelines."

A spokesperson for Brewdog said: "We respect the ASA's decision and are happy to confirm that beer is not a fruit or a vegetable."