Ad description
A paid-for Instagram ad for infant care company Tommee Tippee, seen on 28 March. The caption stated “A bottle feeding game-changer. Expertly engineered to prevent colic, gas, and reflux in ways that’ve never been seen before”. At the bottom of the ad was text which stated "Colicsoothe: Colic relief with one press". Above was a video which featured the product named “Colicsoothe”. Text overlaying the video stated “A ground-breaking anti-colic innovation has landed … Colicsoothe. Engineered to prevent colic in ways that have never been seen before … Vacuum technology removes air from baby’s milk … Even less gas … Even less stress … Even more sleep”.
Issue
The complainant challenged whether the efficacy claims related to colic were misleading and could be substantiated.
Response
Mayborn (UK) Ltd t/a Tommee Tippee said that authorities including the NHS, regarded colic as inconsolable crying affecting an otherwise healthy baby for three or more hours, for at least three days a week, for three weeks or more. They stated that generally understood signs of colic included intense and extreme crying for several hours, burping often or passing a lot of gas, babies curling their legs up towards their belly when crying, clenching their fists when crying, having a red or flushed face when crying, and/or being inconsolable to the extent that nothing the parent did seemed to make it better.
Tommee Tippee said the product was not a medicine, beauty product, medical device, or health related product. Colicsoothe was a small chamber into which an open bottle of baby milk was placed. The product generated a vacuum, which removed dissolved air from the milk. Tommee Tippee stated they worked with an external third party in June and July 2022 to arrange a Colicsoothe product trial. That trial was carried out with 51 parents, over a six-day period, all of whom had confirmed that their babies suffered from the symptoms of colic. The parents were asked to record the number of minutes their baby cried prior to starting the trial, and then on each of the six days whilst using the product.
The average time recorded for crying reduced from 91 minutes prior to starting to use the machine to 42.5 minutes after six days of using the machine, based on reporting from parents. The vast majority of parents reported that the product reduced the symptoms of colic, including gassiness and crying. Furthermore, 58% of parents said their baby slept better after using the product.
Tommee Tippee acknowledged that they did not hold documentary evidence to substantiate that Colicsoothe could prevent colic in babies not already suffering with it and they would not make the claim that it could prevent colic in the future.
Assessment
Upheld
The CAP Code stated that objective claims must be backed by evidence; if relevant, consisting of trials conducted on people. The ad stated “Expertly engineered to prevent colic, gas, and reflux … Even less gas … Even less stress … Even more sleep”. The ASA considered consumers would understand from this that the product could prevent colic and lessen the symptoms of colic, which included gassiness and reduced sleep. As such, in order to substantiate the claims, we considered that a substantive body of evidence was needed, consisting of clinical trials conducted on humans.
We firstly acknowledged Tommee Tippee’s concession that they could not substantiate the claim that Colicsoothe prevented colic and welcomed their explanation that they would not be making that claim in the future.
We also acknowledged the positive results outlined in the test by Tommee Tippee. However, the test had not been peer reviewed, did not use a control group, was not completed under test conditions, was small scale, relied on parents to self-record symptoms, and was conducted over only a six-day period. The data therefore was insufficiently robust to substantiate the claims that the product could prevent colic and lessen the symptoms of colic.
For those reasons, we considered that the evidence provided by Tommee Tippee did not sufficiently substantiate the efficacy claims for the product. We therefore concluded that the ad was misleading.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising), 3.7 (Substantiation), and 12.1 (Medicines, medical devices, health-related products and beauty products).
Action
The ad must not appear again in the form complained about. We told Mayborn (UK) Ltd t/a Tommee Tippee to ensure that future ads did not make efficacy claims about colic and its symptoms unless they held adequate documentary evidence to substantiate them.
