Coca-Cola rapped by advertising watchdog

Advertising watchdogs have banned Coca-Cola from claiming that its Vitamin Water product is a ‘nutritious’ drink.

The drink – which contains 23g of sugar per 500ml bottle – comes in eight with names like Spark, Defence and Power-C, in flavours such as ‘apple-kiwi’ and ‘tropical citrus’, but does not contain fruit.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has ruled that consumers ‘would not expect a “nutritious” drink to have the equivalent of four or five teaspoons of added sugar’, adding that most consumers would be expected to finish the bottle – which contains a quarter of the recommended daily intake of sugar.

Coca-Cola had argued the sugar level was within the range of a low-calorie drink, while vitamin content, such as a daily dose of vitamin C, meant it could be considered healthy. Defending its use of the word ‘nutritious’, it said the product contained ‘nutritionally meaningful quantities of several nutrients including 25% of the recommended daily allowance of four B vitamins (B6, B12, niacin and pantothenic acid) along with 100% of the recommended daily allowance of vitamin C’.

However, the ASA banned it from using the word ‘nutritious’ in future ad campaigns.

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