Are consumers ready to forgive Ribena’s lie?
A lengthy court case recently concluded with GSK making two key admissions: the first, that its advertising — which claimed that the blackcurrants used in its products contained four times the amount of vitamin C as oranges — may have misled the public into believing the drink did in fact contain vitamin C. The second key admission admits that labels on Ribena’s RTD product were wrong to claim that it contained 7mg of vitamin C per 100ml, when it in fact had no detectable vitamin C. After GSK admitted to the two charges, along with more than 10 other breaches of the Fair Trading Act, the Auckland District Court slapped the company with what appears to be a comparatively small fine of NZ$217,000 (US$158,000). GSK was ordered to engage in a one-month corrective advertising campaign in the country’s four leading print titles, which could cost more than $100,000. Clearly, GSK globally has not handled the PR crisis well — surprising in that it boasts an impressive line-up of PR agencies amo
