Morrisons ad banned for encouraging poor eating habits in children, says watchdog
A Morrisons TV ad that showed a young girl removing the salad from her burger before eating it has been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for promoting poor nutritional habits in children.
The ad, created by DLKW Lowe, prompted complaints from 11 viewers who raised concerns over its message around healthy attitudes to food.
Clearcast responded on behalf of the supermarket chain and said that because of the way the girl removed the salad, which it said was to make eating the burger easier, they concluded that it was “perfectly feasible” that she would eat it later.
It added that the girl did not look “disdainfully” at the salad or pull an expression that implied she did not like it.
The ASA disagreed and said the ad placed emphasis on being the preferable option to the salad, reinforced by the emphasis on "love" of burgers in the voiceover and the fact that the girl dropped the salad “in a careless manner”.
Morrisons was told not to broadcast the ad again in its current form.