A Morrisons’ advert for quarter pounder burgers has been banned for promoting bad eating habits to children. The advert shows a young girl’s mother preparing her a burger; the bun is opened, in goes the burger, then the lettuce, a slice of tomato and then red onion is added before the bun is placed back on top. The young girl takes a seat at the table in front of the burger, re-opens it and takes all the salady goodness out and proceeds to eat the burger, minus the salad!
According to BBC News, The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) states that “this advert does not suggest that she is going to eat the salad later.” Eleven complaints were made about the advert, which was found to have broken two rules in the UK code of broadcast advertising. The ASA added “because we considered the ad placed emphasis on the burger being the preferable option to the salad, we concluded it condoned poor nutritional habits or an unhealthy lifestyle, especially in children, and that it disparaged good dietary practice”. In 2012, sweet company Swizzels Matlow was forced to remove an online game, following an ASA ruling that it would encourage poor nutritional habits. This makes Morrisons’ advert the only advert in the UK over two years to break healthy eating guidelines.
Morrison’s response to the ASA adjunction was that "the daughter did not look disdainfully at the salad items or make a face that implied she did not like them or would not eat them in the future" and that "it was perfectly feasible that she would return to it later". The advert was set up as part of Morrison’s campaign to promote its multimillion pound investment into price cuts.
We’ve been discussing this at apt this week, we think that the main point of the advert is over-ridden by the girl taking the salad out of the burger. The main message that Morrisons is trying to communicate here, is in fact that Morrisons burgers are 100% British Beef - now at an even lower price. However, the way they have chosen to illustrate this by using the little girl who makes her burger 100% beef by removing the salad, conveys the wrong message. The message that audiences receive is that the girl doesn’t want the healthy salad; this is interpreted as promoting bad eating habits to children, therefore the lower price and 100% beef becomes the subordinate message.
Morrisons could have created an advert that keeps the dominant message central throughout, without such a controversial approach. As the advert was released in May 2014, potentially a family BBQ would be a better way of communicating the message about the low-priced 100% beef burgers as May sees the beginning of summer where BBQs are on the rise.