Birds and the bees: buthylhydroxi blergh!

Let me tell you about the birds and the bees…Zonnatura is a manufacturer of healthy (biological) products. The company is convinced that it is unnecessary to use a lot of additives to make tasty and healthy food. They show this opinion in a commercial with a singing bee flying through nature, ending up in a factory. There he finds industrial containers with names of chemical additives for food that are hard to pronounce. He does not quite like that. While trying to pronounce the names, he pulls a face and makes a break for it. Meanwhile, a voice-over says: “At Zonnatura we love tasty food. And tasty means to us all the good from nature, without unnecessary additives.”

A complaint was filed with the Dutch Advertising Code Committee about the TVC. The complainant was of the opinion that Zonnatura (Wessanen) implicitly states with the commercial that the named additives are unhealthy. According to the complainant, it is also implied that large amounts of the additives are processed in food. The unpronounceable names would be associated with a popular internet ‘meme’, that suggests that ‘You should not eat anything that you cannot pronounce’. On top of that, the text of the voice-over would (falsely) imply that everything from nature is healthy (naturalistic fallacy).

Nonsense, according to the DACC. The TVC is not misleading, since the bee only embodies the opinion (“to us”) of Zonnatura. Neither on screen, nor in the spoken text is suggested that the stated additives should never be used in food or that the products with these additives would be (completely) unhealthy, according to the DACC. The commercial is about taste. The Committee (also) does not see any connection between the ‘meme’ and the commercial. The incorrect pronunciation of the chemical names is a suitable joke for a busy bee, according to the DACC. Neither is there any ground for ‘natural fallacy’. The complaint is therefore rejected. Sing on, little bee!

Daan van Eek represented Wessanen (Zonnatura) in this DACC-procedure.