I’d like to take the marketing execs at Cow & Gate and smack them upside the head. Where do they get off advertising their formula with the slogan
Trust Cow & Gate…because healthy babies are happy babies
FFS, argh and argh again. And rollercoaster, shame on you for sending me such advertising in my email, have you no respect for the International Code at all?
And I’m sorry but who is uploading their babies to be used by a formula company for advertising purposes? There are babies on the site younger than 6 months, but of course it’s not formula advertising, it’s a search for Ireland’s happiest baby, isn’t it? And OMG if I upload my baby I could even win a maternity shirt or baby hat, isn’t that cool. Oh, it is too infuriating.
Rant over, there’s no point really is there. These people have infinite resources to throw at circumventing the Code and our ridiculously weak advertising laws, as long as they don’t actually say “Buy our formula for your newborn” every thing is legal.
So far on Irish forums, we have seen C&G advertising their “baby club” with the slogan “Your newborn’s tummy is only the size of an eggcup” but that was ok, because it was not an ad for formula, it was an ad for a “Baby club”. Okaayyyyyy.
And we had SMA actually sponsoring the entire Mums to be section on rollercoaster.ie, but the FSAI advised that they could do nothing as SMA was just advertising their brand not a specific formula product, gosh if there was ever a loophole that’s a loophole, their brand is predominantly baby formula, duh! Hmmm….
And that C&G laughing babies ad, again perfectly legal according to the FSAI who did admit that
…Your concerns in respect to advertising of follow-on formulae and its impact on breastfeeding are shared by the FSAI. These concerns are supported by recent surveys carried out by the FSAI and also in the U.K, which appear to show that consumers do not differentiate between advertising of infant formulae and follow-on formulae….
And most recently, Nestlé have started sponsoring Childline, at a coincidental time when they are planning to relaunch their formula into the UK market, Nestlé who had this gem to share about the China formula contamination
“All our products are 100 percent safe…Sales in China are rather being favoured,” Peter Brabeck-Letmathe told reporters in India’s capital, when asked whether the scandal would affect the company’s business.
“It’s rather positive than negative,” Brabeck said.
Nice.
Of course, many parents choose to formula feed, this is not an attack on them. It is important that they are given full, unbiased information on all the options available, but there is one source of this information that is shockingly unreliable, and that is the formula companies themselves, each of whom after all is a business, out to make a profit and convince you, the consumer, that their product is best. False advertising and exaggerated claims of wonderfulness should have no place on baby formula, it’s not right and we really shouldn’t stand for it.
There are many groups worldwide campaigning for more widespread and robust adoption of the International Code, Baby Milk Action, Baby Feeding Law Group & IBFAN are good starting points to learn more. In the meantime, complaining to the relevant authorities (FSAI in Ireland, ASA in the UK) is about all we can do, if they get enough complaints they might take notice, or more than likely, they won’t take notice but at least they’ll have to deal with the complaints!
And if you think this is all storm-in-a-teacup type complaining by “militant” (how I hate that phrase) breastfeeding mums, please take a few minutes to download & look through some of the reports on formula advertising that have been published by Baby Milk Action, it is eye-opening reading. It’s something all parents should be concerned about, regardless of how they choose to feed their babies.
disclaimer: this is not an attack on parents who formula-feed, this is about the companies involved and their often-illegal claims & advertising methods!
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oh,so annoying!
This is a very eye-opening post. I am a mother who for many reasons am unable to breastfeed, and have had to read the ingredients on almost every can of formula avaliable (due to sever milk and wheat and egg sensitivities). Poor child was experimented on until I found what worked because of lack of avaliable information (from health care workers as well as general). Keep up the good work, cause someone really needs to speak out.
I also didn’t realize what they are allowed to say in advertising in the states! Do people just blindly believe this stuff?
Ugh!! That makes me so mad!!
If only there were enough money for decent breastfeeding campaigns to counter some of this gufg – constant bombardment, rather than the occasional attempt.
Excellent article HP. Its so infuriating, I swear if I ever become wealthy, I’ll fund slick bf ads. Watch this space
OH HPP! You’re a gal after my own heart, I tell ya! When I first came here and had the boob tube on, i saw this add with all these beautiful babies giggling, and saying things lik e”Do I look like I have a hard time digesting food?” (or whatever it is they say) and I actually naively thought (and I should know better) “OMG, is this an add for breastfeeding???!!!!” and then it turned to formula and I swear to you my heart sunk and I was nearly in tears. But the thing is that they actually had ME going, someone who is a huge nestle boycotter and seriously leery of any advertising in general. I was so sad.
Thankfully I am on the Baby Milk Action website and I feel I am making a slight difference by being a “Code-Watcher” myself but its so hard to keep morale up at times.
Thanks for writing this post!
OMG get a grip its an advert, everyone knows breastfeeding is best and if you didn’t as soon as you become pregnant everyone and their granny tells you it is, but as you know not every one can breastfeed . I find it hard to believe that people take every word of an advert as gospel and I’m sure if they have to use formula they would look into what is best. people have to get an idea of what to buy somewhere as no midwife or healthvisitior will recommend any brands because they have to promote breastfeeding.
@ Lou, Wow “OMG get a grip” is a wonderfully respectful way to start a comment, thanks for that.
I will presume (possibly incorrectly) that you haven’t actually read the post, much less the links in it so I won’t bother to reiterate the points I made above.
You seem passionate about this topic so I am sure that you realise how powerful marketing can be, and I am sure you realise the difference between marketing spin & actual facts. Many new parents don’t, the formula companies have a lot of cash and “science” behind them, they are not interested in supplying plain facts, they are interested in selling a product.
If you are interested in seeing some information on this, might I suggest a read of Baby Milk Action’s post comparing the marketing claims of the various UK formula manufacturers.
Thanks for taking the time to comment!
Hi HPP – I’m a mum who has chosen this as the theme for a uni assignment. I’m finding your blog v helpful but still confused on:
1) Exactly which (C&G) formula milks are banned from advertising? And is this TV advertising only, or magazines also?
2)Is the general ‘anti-formula’ movement also against baby *foods* (meal jars, desserts etc) – or do they say mothers should exclusively breastfeed until a certain age?
3) Are specialist formulae (eg breast milk fortifier, Nutriprem etc as used in special care units) also banned from ads?)
Can you confirm? Or where would I find reliable info on this? I have read many, many sites and am still unclear.
Hope you can help asap. Thanks and great blog.
@killyvale, thanks for stopping by, and good luck with the uni assignment, I’ll answer your questions if I can but I don’t know where you are based, the situation is different in every country depending on how well they have ratified the code.
You can get heaps of info from Baby Milk Action, Baby Feeding Law Group & IBFAN, their links are all in the post above.
1. In Ireland, all formula for babies below 6 months cannot be advertised anywhere. So the so-called “follow-on” formulas are heavily advertised here (and they are normally almost identical in packaging to the 0-6mths formula
) and the formula companies are very into sponsoring baby magazines & shows to get their names known, this is allowed as they are technically not advertising infant formula, just their company name (dubious really in my opinion).
2. I don’t think there is an “anti-formula” movement as such, being anti-advertising of formula is a very different situation to being anti-formula. It is generally accepted that the WHO recommendations of exclusive breastfeeding till 6 months is best practice for most babies. Again we are dealing with a multi-million dollar baby food industry here who are making 0 dollars from an exclusively breastfed infant. You can find interesting info on the marketing of the 4+months foods on this page http://www.babymilkaction.org/resources/yqsanswered/yqanestle.html under the heading: WHA policy on complementary feeding.
3. I imagine so, as they are aimed at the 0-6 months age-group, as far as I know these items need to be prescribed by a doctor in many countries as they are specialist and for particular health issues.
I’m curious from the phrasing of your questions (especially question 2), can I ask what the general direction of your theme is?
Again, I’d recommend you have a read through Baby Milk Action, Baby Feeding Law Group & IBFAN’s websites, there is so much information out there, it’ll take a while to read it all