Can Someone Sue Advertiser Based On An Unfulfilled ‘Promise’ as Advertised

The last thursday lecturer class is talk about the law of contract. Most of the interesting part of this chapter is can someone sue advertiser based on an unfulfilled ‘promise’ ad advertised. It reminds me about the Ribena’s case which is 2 schoolgirls found there’s no Vitamin C in Ribena.

The following is the new that posted on 27th March 2007.

Schoolgirls find there's no C in Ribena
March 27, 2007

Global drugs giant GlaxoSmithKline was forced into another embarrassing admission today after two 14-year-olds from New Zealand found its popular blackcurrant drink Ribena contained almost no vitamin C.

Last week, GlaxoSmithKline made a similar admission to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) on the basis that its drinks contained "significantly less" Vitamin C than what was claimed.According to New Zealand news web site stuff.co.nz, the company today admitted that its cartoned Ready To Drink Ribena which it claimed had 7mg of Vitamin C per 100ml in fact had no detectable Vitamin C content.

Glaxosmithkline will be sentenced this afternoon.High school students Anna Devathasan and Jenny Suo tested the children's drink against advertising claims that "the blackcurrants in Ribena have four times the vitamin C of oranges" in 2004.

Instead, the two found the syrup-based drink contained almost no trace of vitamin C, and one commercial orange juice brand contained almost four times more than Ribena.

"We thought we were doing it wrong, we thought we must have made a mistake," Devathasan, now aged 17, told New Zealand newspapers of the school experiment.A GSK spokeswoman in Britain, which is the lead market for Ribena, said the company had been in discussion with the New Zealand Commerce Commission regarding Vitamin C levels and the way these levels had been communicated in New Zealand.

"GSK has conducted thorough laboratory testing of Vitamin C levels in Ribena in all other markets," the spokeswoman said.

"This testing has confirmed that Ribena drinks in all other markets, including the UK, contain the stated levels of Vitamin C, as described on product labels."

Ribena, first made in the 1930s and distributed to British children during World War II, is now sold in 22 countries.

GSK paid little attention to the claims of Devathasan and Suo until their complaints reached the commerce commission.

But it now faces 15 charges related to misleading advertising in an Auckland court, risking potential fines of up to $NZ3 million ($2.65 million).

From this case, we can realise that advertiser must have their responsibility in advertising. There should not mislead and provide incorrect information to their consumers. For an example, the blackcurrants in Ribena have four times the vitamin C of oranges, but in this case, we realise that there is some contradiction between the advertisements and real situation. This behaviour already affect Ribena’s reputation and company image in their consumers’ mind.

I think that the Ribena’s case can be an alert to another company. Therefore, the company does not think that they no necessary have the responsibility on their advertisement. The company should be careful for their advertisement, thus the advertisements do not mislead or provide incorrect information to consumers. This is good news for all consumers.

Prepared by,

Fong Yok Yan (1071120015)