Misleading advertising - British regulator reprimands Lufthansa poster
The British advertising industry’s self-regulatory body has reprimanded Lufthansa for a poster, finding its message to be misleading. The poster shows a front-view image of an airplane, the lower part of which has been replaced by a view of Earth from space. According to a report by the British news agency PA, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled that this does not reflect reality.
The poster bears the slogan "Connecting the world. Protecting its future." ("Connecting the world. Protecting its future").
The reason given was that the message could easily be understood by consumers as if Lufthansa had already taken significant steps to reduce its impact on the environment. However, many of the initiatives launched by the airline would not show results for years or even decades.
Lufthansa had argued that the poster was intended to draw consumers' attention to the company's efforts to reduce the impact of flying on the environment. This was not linked to the claim of causing no damage whatsoever to the environment, and it was wrong to assume that the average consumer understood this to be the case.
The ASA is a self-regulatory body for the advertising industry in the United Kingdom. It has no coercive means to enforce its decisions. Nevertheless, they are considered binding. (SDA)
