It is an ”objectively determinable factual reality” that beans make you fart, according to the Advertising Standards Authority.
It made the ruling in rejecting a complaint by the Dry Bean Producers Organisation against a television commercial for Wildeklawer Sweet Onions.
The commercial shows a rugby player sitting in a change room with his coach. The rest of the team is standing outside the door refusing to enter. The lone player is eating a can of beans, and his coach asks: ”Why, Roy, why? With sweet onions there are no tears, no burn and definitely no stink.”
The pay-off line is: ”Wildeklawer Sweet Onions. Stinky is out. Sweet is in.”
According to the ASA’s advertising industry tribunal, the bean producers complained that the commercial broke down all the hard work the dry bean industry had invested in promoting beans’ health benefits.
The producers claimed the commercial failed to recognise that gas formation due to beans was ”merely a temporary condition which occurs while a person’s body gets used to the added fibre and prebiotics contained in beans”.
Wildeklawer submitted in response that the commercial did not make misleading or competitive claims, and that it was a common perception that beans caused gas.
The tribunal said that although the commercial could be seen as disparaging, the producers themselves admitted beans did at least temporarily cause gas.
”The commercial plays on what may be considered to be a factually accurate weakness in beans as a food product,” the tribunal said.
Though the tribunal split on the issue, the majority of its members held that the commercial did not breach the code.
While it did constitute comparative advertising, Wildeklawer had not intended to disparage beans as a product.
”The commercial constitutes a harmless parody. It plays on an objectively determinable factual reality which cannot be denied in an over the top manner. The intention was not to discourage people from eating beans but merely to encourage people to eat onions.” – Sapa