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New Decisions: Travel Agents, Medicines and More

Webjet Cleared Of Denigration

Online travel company Webjet recently ran a television advertisement featuring a woman saying her travel agent failed to give her all the information she needed so she had gone online and had made her own bookings. A voiceover then promoted the Webjet site “which lets you see and compare all your available airfare choices to actually book the best deal.”

A complainant claimed the advertisement was

“… almost slanderous for want of a better word. It makes travel agents out to be liars, or incompetent at the very least. I, as well as many travel agents, do their utmost to get my clients the best deal, and this ad makes out that travel agents are deceitful or incompetent.”

The Complaints Board did not uphold the complaint, determining that the advertisement did not denigrate travel agents as a whole but was an anecdotal illustration of one person’s experience with one travel agent and with online booking.  Read more.

Family Health Diary In The Clear

A complaint was made about a Family Health Diary television advertisement for Fucithalmic conjunctivitis eye drops.   The Complainant was concerned because the advertisement asserted that, unlike the advertised product, over-the-counter medicines for the highly contagious condition of conjunctivitis needed to be applied up to five times a day, which was an inconvenience when children were at school. The Complainant’s view was that no child with this highly contagious condition should be at school.

The Complaints Board said it was clear the drops were to be administered to a child before and after school only when a doctor had deemed the child was no longer contagious and was fit to return to school. They stated the advertisement was socially responsible and not likely to mislead consumers in accordance with the Therapeutic Products Advertising Code.

It was also noted that the advertisement had been previously approved by the Commercial Approvals Bureau and the Therapeutic Advertising Pre-vetting Service. The complaint was not upheld. Read more.

The following decisions were released on 18 August 2016: