A story from The Australian is below. A company statement is here.
THE maker of
blackcurrant drink Ribena has launched an advertising campaign
apologising for misleading customers over the product’s Vitamin C
content.
The television and print ads will
feature the Australian managing director of GlaxoSmithKline, John
Sayers, saying sorry for what he labels an ”unreliable” testing
method.
The campaign aims to turn around
flagging sales and rebuild consumer trust after a New Zealand court
found GlaxoSmithKline guilty of 15 breaches of the Fair Trading Act.
The
company was fined $NZ227,500 ($202,000) and forced to admit there were
no noticeable quantities of Vitamin C in its ready-to-drink Ribena,
contrary to information on the cartons. It also admitted claims that
blackcurrants contained four times the amount of Vitamin C of oranges
might mislead people about the content of its undiluted Ribena product.
In the ads, Mr Sayers said the company was not aware of the mistake.
”The
testing method we used to determine the level of Vitamin C … was
unreliable but we were unaware of that at the time,” Mr Sayers said.
”From the moment we’ve known there was a problem, we’ve been working
hard to fix it.”
…
