What Trip adult soft drink ad ban means for future of functional claims

Functional food and drink brands were dealt a warning last week, when the Advertising Standards Authority banned an ad from soft drinks brand Trip for making unauthorised claims.

On its website, Trip said its Mindful Blend range of drinks “promoted feelings of calm” thanks to its ingredients, including lion’s mane and magnesium.

The ASA found Trip had strayed too far away from approved health claims – and as such, it was in breach of the CAP code.

Trip is far from the only brand in the category making bold health claims, however. Functional food and drink is in strong growth, and suppliers are making all sorts of claims to stand out in a crowded category.

So, what kind of health claims are brands permitted to make, and how can they stay on the right side of the ASA’s interpretation of the rules?

Why Trip stumbled

Trip has made calm a central pillar of its marketing since the start of its journey to become a soft drinks sensation. The brand’s debut TV ad – which aired last year – depicted a woman in a seemingly idyllic setting enjoying a can of Trip, before zooming out to reveal she was actually in the midst of moving house. Trip’s Mindful Blend drinks, it proclaimed, would help consumers “find… calm in the everyday chaos”.

That the ASA has taken issue with the word “calm” in its online marketing has raised fears the brand could be forced into a strategic rethink.

But there is a specific reason why the web page – which featured copy written by Trip alongside repurposed third party studies – breached the CAP code. That was down to specific health claims about magnesium. The suggestion magnesium could “reduce cortisol levels” and that “each ingredient works … in different ways, to promote feelings of calm” implied “beneficial health effects”, the ASA said.

These claims were deemed to differ in meaning from the authorised claim for magnesium under the GB Nutrition and Health Claims Register (the GB Register): that it “contributes to normal psychological function”.

In another breach of the code, Trip also reproduced online news headlines that lion’s mane – which is not listed on the GB register at all – could help reduce stress and anxiety.

The brand is keen to paint the ruling as an oversight that has since been corrected. “This ruling related to a single page on the website,” says a Trip spokesman. “We worked closely with the ASA to address their query promptly and implement the changes requested.”

After taking legal advice, Trip is “confident its products contain ingredients that permit use of the word calm”, the spokesman insists. The word is “widely and lawfully used by many brands across the food & beverage industry,” he notes.

However, others feel the language used was too far from the permitted health claim. By proclaiming its products contained ingredients that would “simply make you feel calm”, Trip exaggerated what the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) journal – the source from which most GB Register-approved claims are derived – says magnesium can do, nutritionist Clare Baseley believes.

“The leap from ‘normal psychological function’ to ‘calming’ was probably a bridge too far in the eyes of the ASA.”

According to EFSA, magnesium deficiency is associated with symptoms such as depression, psychosis, irritability or confusion, Baseley explains. But taking magnesium “isn’t going to make you feel calmer if the cause of your anxiety is nothing to do with a nutritional deficiency,” she points out.

Ramifications for brands

Either way, the ruling should act as a wake-up call for brands that make claims around mental health, Baseley argues.

“It’s quite easy with psychological function to start to talk about benefits that don’t necessarily have the same meaning,” she says. Making unpermitted claims to treat or prevent disease “doesn’t just mean conditions like cancer but also things like anxiety”, she adds.

Caution shouldn’t be limited to suppliers of products making cognitive claims. In 2020, the ASA rapped Revival for claims its products could “boost immunity”, as an exaggeration of authorised health claims about vitamin C and D.

Similar accusations were levelled at Plenish after the brand rolled out an OOH campaign claiming its juice shots “won’t harm your dignity but will boost your immunity” in January this year.

While it might make for drier marketing copy, Baseley recommends brands stick to the approved claim wording.

“The more motivating it sounds to the consumer, the more likely it is that you’ll be exaggerating,” she says.

The ASA advises a degree of variation in wording “may be acceptable”, and the context of the ad as a whole is important.

But ultimately, the result “must have the same meaning for consumers as that of the authorised claim”.

For example, replacing the wording “contributes to” in the authorised claim with “supports” has “previously been considered to retain the meaning of the authorised claim”, the ASA says.

By contrast, rewording an authorised claim that includes the phrase “normal function” to instead refer to “improved” or “increased” function, “is likely to be seen as exaggerating the claim”.

A possible loophole?

But copywriters still have some room for creativity. Ads are permitted to make more general health claims – just not in isolation.

General health claims are set out in the CAP code “as references to general benefits of a nutrient or food for overall good health or health-related wellbeing”.

Brands are allowed to make those claims as long as they are accompanied by the specific relevant authorised health claim in full in their marketing.

General health claims would include phrases such as “promote wellbeing” or “good for the gut”.

The product must also contain enough of the ingredient in question to meet the conditions of use of the authorised claim, as set out in the GB Register (see table, left).

There have been cases of big brands getting rapped by the regulator for failing to meet those thresholds.

Take the ad for Kellogg’s All-Bran Prebiotic Oaty Clusters in 2023. Here, the ASA ruled “prebiotic” was a general health claim, as consumers would understand it as “connected to good health”. But they would “not necessarily know by what specific physiological function or functions that effect was achieved”.

Kellogg’s claims were linked by asterisks to the specific authorised health claim that “chicory inulin contributes to normal bowel function by increasing stool frequency”. However, the ad still fell foul of the code as the cereal did not contain enough chicory insulin per portion to meet the conditions of use for the claim.

Further case studies like this will give brands more clarity on where the boundaries lie. In the meantime, as always, the less carefully they tread, the more likely they are to find they have crossed the line.