The ASA should not tolerate bad science

I was disappointed to hear that the Advertising Standards Authority failed to uphold a complaint about an organic fertiliser company which advertised their products as containing no chemicals.

The ASA's argument to taking no action was essentially that this inaccurate description was due to sloppiness and incompetence rather than a deliberate wish to mislead, and that there were probably no potential customers who thought that the company was selling hard vacuum.

Well, they were probably right on both those counts.

Nevertheless, I regret the ASA's decision to tolerate such a blatant case of "dumbing down." The ASA is supposed to ensure that adverts are legal, decent, honest, and truthful, and this one fails the fourth test. They should have instructed the company to clarify their advertising by using an expression like "no man-made chemicals" or "no artificial additives."

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