ASA Adjudication on Gallaher Ltd. (A12-208266)

This ruling by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) sanctioned Japan Tobacco International (JTI) for misleading advertising for their campaign against plain packaging in the United Kingdom.  Public health organizations made a complaint about the advertisements of JTI.  The ads claimed that plain packaging was “categorically rejected” and there was “no evidence” of its effectiveness.  The ASA found that both of these claims were misleading and unrepresentative of the true facts.  The ASA ordered JTI and its subsidiary, Gallaher Ltd, to not run the ads again.

ASA Adjudication on Gallaher Ltd, Complaint Ref. A12-208266

  • United Kingdom
  • Mar 13, 2013
  • Advertising Standards Authority

Parties

Plaintiff

  • Cancer Research UK
  • ASH
  • ASH Scotland

Defendant Gallaher Ltd

Third Party

  • Japan Tobacco International

Legislation Cited

Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) Code, Rule 3.1 (Misleading Advertising)

Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) Code, Rule 3.7 (Substantiation)

Related Documents

Type of Litigation

Tobacco Control Topics

Substantive Issues

Type of Tobacco Product

None

"We noted that the Government had not taken forward and built into law proposals for plain packaging at the same time as other measures considered under the 2008 Consultation. However, we considered that readers of the ads would be likely to interpret the use of the word "rejected" to describe that decision as a more categorical action than had in fact been taken. We also considered that the various ministerial comments provided by JTI were not conclusive in demonstrating that the Government had considered after the 2008 Consultation that there was no credible evidence at all in favour of the introduction of plain packaging. We therefore considered that the claims in the ads that the policy had been "rejected" in 2008 because of a lack of credible evidence gave a misleading impression of the position and action taken at that time by the Government and concluded that the ads breached the Code."