A commercial for Morrisons, promoting the supermarket chain’s 100% beef burgers has been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority for promoting “poor nutritional habits”.
A spokesman from Morrisons expressed the supermarket’s disappointment at the decision, and defended the advert vehemently: “Trying to convince children to eat their fruit and vegetables is something that most parents will identify with. Our aim with the ad was to reflect this in a humorous and engaging way.”
The advert showed a mother preparing a burger for her daughter by adding salad ingredients to the patty and the bun, but the daughter removing the lettuce, onion and tomato from her burger before taking a bite.
Before being screened the commercial was vetted and approved by the industry body Clearcast, which thought the images and message were entirely harmless.
Clearcast said the salad was not thrown away and the girl made no attempt to hide it. It suggested the girl had simply taken it out to make eating the burger easier and might, possibly, have eaten it later.
However, this failed to convince the watchdog. It argued that the message given was that the daughter was so eager to eat the burger on its own that she immediately removed the salad, so ‘choosing the option with less nutritional value’.
Morrisons made its position clear: “We’re disappointed with the ASA’s adjudication,” its spokesperson said.
This story was originally published on a previous version of the Meat Management website and so there may be some missing images and formatting issues.
