Innocent lives up to name over ad complaints

According to the ASA, the soft drinks maker was one of two companies, along with rival group Smoothie Revolution, which complained about the promotions. The groups' grievances stem from claims that the adverts implied smoothies had a higher juice content and were healthier than regular fruit juices. On top of this, they alleged that the adverts served to attack the health benefits of juice, though all these claims were rejected by the ASA. In upholding the advert, the ASA's verdict could lead to similar marketing campaigns by other smoothie makers in order to promote the fruit contents of their products to tap into growing demand for products with purported health benefits. As part of its mandate, the ASA can call on an advertiser it deems in breach of it guidelines to drop a campaign. Though the authority's recommendations are voluntary, failure to comply can lead to significant pressure from broadcasters to drop the ads, as well as a possible referral to the Office of Fair Trading (OFT). The ASA registered two other complaints from members of the public over the campaign, which came in both television and print form, with similar concerns to those of PepsiCo and Smoothie Revolution. Innocent ​ However, Innocent refuted claims the ad campaign sought6 to question the healthiness of fruit juices like PespiCo's Tropicana brand, stating that it was instead designed to outline the differences in smoothie and juice manufacture. The company said in notes to the ASA that the ad was aimed to show that both products had vital nutrition benefits for consumers, though its products were "even better for you"​ than juice drinks. As Innocent is also a manufacturer of fruit juices itself, the group said it would be counter productive to attack the segment. ASA verdict ​ In its judgement, the ASA agreed with Innocent's claims that the advert was designed to demonstrate the different manufacturing processes between the products, and not to signify a higher content of juice. The authority also stated that in line with expert advice it had sought on the issue, it also agreed that smoothies could have additional health benefits over juice due to the "​possible synergistic interactions between components of different fruits."​ In light of an additional complaint from Smoothie Revolution over claims made in the advert that the smoothies made use of an entire fruit, the authority again ruled in favour of Innocent. ​"The expert indicated that Innocent's smoothie-making process excluded some parts of certain fruits because they were inedible or potentially harmful,"​ the ASA stated. "[The expert] added that it was plausible that other parts of the fruit were omitted to some extent, because of the processes involved in making smoothies, and if that was so it might not be entirely accurate to describe smoothies as containing "the whole crushed fruit". ​ Nonetheless, the ASA said that it would not require any further action to be taken by Innocent regarding the campaigns. PepsiCo were not available for comment regarding the judgement at the time of press.