Three people complained that the poster for Vitamin Water was misleading for using the word \”nutritious\’\’ in the catchline, with one of them saying they believed each 500ml bottle contained more than 30g of sugar.
Upholding the complaints, the Advertising Standards Authority said it thought consumers would understand the word \”nutritious\’\’ as a claim that Vitamin Water had added ingredients needed by the body in order to stay healthy.
Coca-Cola said the product actually contained 23g of sugar per 500ml.
All varieties of the product qualified for the category of \”low-calorie\’\’ drinks under European Union regulations.
Defending the use of the word \”nutritious\’\’, Coca-Cola said the product contained \”nutritionally meaningful quantities of several nutrients including 25 per cent of the recommended daily allowance of four B vitamins\” and \”100 per cent of the recommended daily allowance of vitamin C\’\’.
Might I suggest that the ASA bods try keeping body and soul together without ingesting calories?
Quite, calories are nutrition thus something which contains calories is nutritious.
Coca Cola’s calories are rapacious capitalist calories and not healthy state calories approved by the righteous.
FFS; the ASA are allowed to redefine language now?
nutritious a. providing nutrients
And what’s Vitamin C? Is it, perchance, a micronutrient? Oh look, it is!
Yes, indeed, and “organic” means “plant and animal matter” or perhaps even “made out of carbon based molecules”.
I hate to intrude into Back-Slapping Pedant Corner, but ‘nutritious’ is generally understood to mean more than just ‘containing calories’.
e.g. an old boot with icing suger dusted on it isn’t ‘nutritious’.
“e.g. an old boot with icing suger dusted on it isn’t ‘nutritious’.” It is if you’re starving. Which is a reasonable test.
Apple juice, orange juice and grape juice all have a similar sugar content to regular Coke and way more than this Vitamin Water stuff.
The ASA are not being objective.
“e.g. an old boot with icing suger dusted on it isn’t ‘nutritious’.” … sorry man, gotta disagree with you there – an old boot dusted with sugar is most certainly nutritious.
Water is a nutrient. It is the most important of all the nutrients. Lack of water will kill you much faster than lack of all the other nutrients combined.
nutrient: (noun) any substance that can be metabolized by an organism to give energy and build tissue [syn: food] — From WordNet (r) 2.0
Synonym: food. Hence sugar (a sort of food) is nutritious for humans.
The value for money of the ASA (whatever it costs) looks, at this moment, thin. It’s a quango. The government has run out of money. Hence …
Best regards