Recent ASA SA rulings

Sunshine D Lite / Unilever / 14790 (20 JAN 2010)
Vodacom Yebo4less / Cell C / 12885 (Appeal) (05 Nov 2009)
Knorr / Royco / 10646 (02 Apr 2009)

Interesting ASA Cases

From South Africa & abroad..

The logo displayed “City of Ekurhuleni”. The complainant submitted that there is no such place or city registered on the official data base of the Council of South African Geographical Names.

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DM Kisch, Leading IP Law Specialists

DM Kisch has over 135 years of experience in intellectual property law, with niche expertise to service the marketing and communications industry.

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Recent ASA SA rulings

Sunshine D Lite / Unilever / 14790 (20 JAN 2010)

Unilever lodged a competitor complaint against the packaging, in-store advertising and a television commercial for SUNSHINE D LITE medium fat spread.

Unilever requested substantiation from Cape Oil and Margarine (Pty) Ltd for its claims, and argued that the television commercial is misleading because it incorrectly refers to the featured product as margarine, when it is in fact a spread.

Cape Oil and Margarine (Pty) Ltd was required to withdraw the claims with immediate effect.

Vodacom Yebo4less / Cell C / 12885 (Appeal) (05 Nov 2009)

Cell C (Pty) Ltd lodged a complaint against Vodacom (Pty) Ltd in regard to a print advertisement which read “Pay for 1 minute and get up to 99 free minutes with Yebo4less”. The following statement appears underneath this advertisement in small type “Now prepaid customers can get up to 99% discount on calls to all networks”.

The Directorate found that Vodacom had to show the discount of 99% applied to more than the insignificant proportion of Yebo4less users. Although the Directorate and the Advertising Industry Tribunal (AIT) held that Vodacom had not discharged the onus of proof, Vodacom successfully defended the complaint before the Appeal Committee when they introduced new evidence.

Knorr / Royco / 10646 (02 Apr 2009)

Mars Consumer Products (Pty) Limited submitted a complaint to the ASA against Unilever South Africa (Pty) Limited’s “Fresh Ideas” television commercial (TVC) on the basis that it exploited Royco’s advertising goodwill (Clause 8 of the ASA Code) and that it imitated (Clause 9 of the ASA code) its existing “Meal Inspiration” TVC. The Directorate dismissed these complaints, but the Advertising Industry Tribunal (AIT) upheld Mars’ appeal that the “Fresh Ideas” TVC exploited Mars’ advertising goodwill in breach in clause 8. It made no finding on imitation.

The Appeal Committee dismissed Unilever’s subsequent appeal and ruled that its “Fresh Ideas” TVC in its current format is to be withdrawn.