In the nineties, the Court of Appeal of Casablanca had asked my expert opinion in a case where services Fraud were accusing one multinational company of selling soap with olive oil that didn’t contain such an element. Olive oil was indeed in the bath soap but at such low levels that they went unnoticed for the usual techniques of laboratory control. In any case, this contradicts the subliminal message conveyed by the image of an olive branch occupying the largest area of the main face of the packaging of the soap supposedly seeking to show that the oil was added generously. In the United States, where the law regulates the labeling drastically, the attitude of society would probably have been considered a transgression to the law. But here, false advertising is far from being an immediate concern in the eyes of the regulations. Perhaps that is the reason why it is not uncommon to find commercial ads judged deceptive in other countries are accepted by national TVs for broadcasting in prime time with no objection from anybody. This article discusses some aspects of false advertising and sees if there are ways to improve the situation.
Advertising and the Law
The essence of the law on food safety is the same worldwide: the supplier has the obligation to bring to market safe foods. But the assessment of food safety depends on a lot of criteria correctly identified for some of them and less known for others. For example, in the fifties, the advertising on cigarette (not a food) has linked its consumption with better sports performance! Who could believe such nonsense today? Similarly, some soft drinks world famous claimed quench thirst. Today, many regulations recognize that these drinks are designed to rather heighten the thirst. The advertising on these products has not ceased, but the slogans used have been themselves redesigned for better sneak through the meshes of the law. Because ultimately the consumer that the law seeks to protect from abuse is the same man that advertising industrials are interested in appealing to him with messages very elaborate. When regulation devotes hundred US $ to protect the client, the industry affects ten thousand US $ instead to convince the customer to buy the same. The fight is definitely uneven.
Sophistication of the advertising message
Since the fall of communism, the new countries that opt for a liberal economy continues to grow and this multiplication is naturally accompanied by the development of new industrial areas, including processing food units, looking to emerge and sustain their business in the global market. One way or another, all these people use advertising as a means to attract more consumers to their products. At one point, the competition becomes fierce and the wording of the advertisement addressed to the consumer to harpoon becomes a limiting factor that must be studied in a much targeted way. In this jungle where slogans abound, but where we are not more informed than before, consumers have become ill of their food. Now, the recurring features of a patient are suspicion in all directions except before his attending physician. It is possible that food manufacturers were made aware of this fact. So, in order to force the hand of customers to buy their products no matter what, they have come to use advertising that was only reserved for drugs. Advertising a yogurt which suggests that regular consumption may regulate disturbed intestinal transit is to pour into chapter of those wordings that flirt with the fluctuation zone between what is food and what is drug. Of course, the average consumer, usually profane to science questions, which receives the advertisement, especially after a heavy meal in the evening of a day of Ramadan, and understands that he can rectify his “gastrointestinal disease” in being seated at home and simply by eating a yogurt, is likely to bite greedily on the harpoon of advertising.
Comment
It is generally accepted that if a drug gets to cure more than 85% of patients with a peculiar disease, the therapeutic virtues, source of healing, are recognized by the regulatory authorities to that particular drug if, on the other hand, the adverse effects are also well specified and notified. But the manufacturing of a drug requires considerable investment in research and often requires a lot of patience in the long process that sometimes leads to the discovery of the miracle molecule that will bring big profits to the pharmaceutical company. Once this path has been completed successfully, the substances may be prescribed by the attending physician and what the patient, who wants to heal, has to do is just to comply with physician recommendations on the medications he must take. In the end, the pharmaceutical industrial lucky that sees the sale of its products be done simply and in sustained manner can obviously excite lust of colleagues of agribusinesses. The question is that the two protagonists do not have the same risks. Moreover, the processing of fresh produce to make a commercially stable food of it is lot more accessible than going through path for the discovery of a new drug. The question remains that consumers are sick of their diet. Basically, there is a proliferation of Junk Food, suspected to be the cause of many illnesses related to diabetes, obesity and other cardiovascular diseases. To reduce the incidence of food borne illnesses, one solution would be to convince manufacturers to be more vigilant about what they add to the food supply. But these people are paying attention only to the economic performance of their business and nothing else. Hence, they see it more appropriate to invade the flat strips of advertising for medicines so to force the hand of reluctant consumers to purchase their products and thus increase their turnover.
In conclusion, although an upgrade of our legal arsenal on food advertising is underway, Morocco would do well to consider, in the meantime, interim measures to curb the wave of misleading advertisements that affects most of the national media. This may be an idea to simply ask, for example, if the commercials, these people want to pass on the Moroccan media, were rejected by another country and why. If it turns out that this was the case for an overlapping on the area of public health, then direct them to the Ministry of Health for recommendation. This will discourage surely some professionals of misleading advertisements.
