Regret the Error

Ribena places apology ads

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.''
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Paper, pastor apologize for ad

Who would have thought that an ad touting a sermon entitled, "The Only Way to Destroy the Jewish Race," would cause problems? Not the Portland Press Herald, apparently. A story from that paper:

The minister of a Baptist church in South Portland asked for forgiveness Monday for frightening members of the Jewish community with a provocative newspaper advertisement that promoted his Sunday sermon about anti-Semitism.

The ad for the First Baptist Church appeared on the Religion & Values page of the Portland Press Herald on Saturday, touting a sermon titled, "The Only Way to Destroy the Jewish Race."

The sermon was supportive of Jews but the words in the ad generated fear and anger, as well as complaints to the church and the newspaper.

"Dear friends, please forgive me for causing alarm in your hearts," the Rev. Philip Andrukaitis wrote in a statement released Monday afternoon. "No doubt, several folks have already jumped to conclusions about me and this church."

Andrukaitis' sermon, the text of which he gave to Jewish leaders and the news media, called for Christians to support Jews and the nation of Israel. He said the sermon title was intended to spark discussion and referred to his message that God will never allow the destruction of his chosen people. "I never expected it," Andrukaitis said of the uproar caused by the ad.

The newspaper also apologized on Monday, for publishing the ad containing the sermon title. The newspaper's guidelines "prohibit advertising copy that might appear offensive in nature," and the publication was the result of a mistake, according to a written statement released by Rob Blethen, director of advertising.

"The Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram apologizes to all who might have been offended by this unintentional oversight. Additional safeguards have been put in place to avoid a similar situation in the future," the statement said...

Bea Arthur is a lock for an Oscar

A reader provided us with a copy of a Blockbuster Canada email newsletter that made an amusing error in regards to Oscar nominations. It referred to "Dreamgirls" as "Golden Girls." See below. The company sent a corrected newsletter with this added:

Editor's Note: There was an error in the "Insider View" section of this week's Buzz which was circulated earlier today. This version has been corrected and we apologize for sending out the Buzz twice today.

Nepal tourism ad uses image of Peru

It's a bit different from our usual fare, but we couldn't resist:

LIMA (Reuters) - Royal Nepal Airlines has apologized to Peru after mistakenly using a photo of the Inca ruins of Machu Picchu to promote tourism in Nepal.
Peru's foreign ministry said in a statement Wednesday the flagship carrier of the Himalayan kingdom, about half way around the world from the Andean country, had put the picture of Peru's tourism icon, Machu Picchu, on a poster under a slogan "Have you seen Nepal?"
Peruvian mountaineer Ernesto Malaga, who was visiting India last month, noticed the blunder on a poster hanging on a wall in the airline's office in New Delhi. Peruvian authorities requested explanations from the airline via the embassy.
"The airline ... offered apologies to Peru for using the picture of the Machu Picchu Sanctuary on a poster to promote their country and assured that the lamentable error has been corrected," the statement said.
"As a consequence, the Nepalese airline fired an employee in the rank of a manager ... It is concluded that it was an isolated error," it added...Link

All aboard for a “France Whine Tour”

This gem of an apology for an email advertisement/newsletter was sent in by a new reader:

From: EuroGroups
Sent: Thursday, July 13, 2006 12:24 PM
To: [deleted]
Subject: An Apology for Erroneous Ad: France Wine Tour

An Apology for Erroneous Ad

To all our readers,
With all sense of responsibility, the staff, management and editors of eTurboNews apologizes for the error in yesterday's Rail Europe ad featuring France Wine Tour.

We are sorry that the subject for the eTurboNews Travel-Telegram broadcast read “France Whine Tour” instead of “France Wine Tour” as it should have been. 

Below is a corrected version of the ad...

Spelling bee errors continue

From the AP:

AMARILLO, Texas - Caitlin Campbell couldn't spell collyrium but someone couldn't spell her last name. A billboard went up in this Panhandle city to honor Caitlin's eighth-place finish in the national spelling bee. It reads: "Congratulations! Caitlin Cambell for making Amarillo proud."
Lamar Outdoor Advertising, which donated the space, said it plans to replace the downtown sign with the correct spelling.
Caitlin, 14, made it to the ninth round of the first prime-time network broadcast of the Scripps National Spelling Bee earlier this month in Washington. She left the competition when she misspelled the word collyrium, a term for eye lotion. Link

More spelling bee errors here.

"Fear or distress" in advertising

This is a retraction for an advertisement that ran in Australia's Sunday Telegraph:

RETRACTION
by Sunpab Health Products Pty Ltd (Sunsnatural) and The Sunday Telegraph
An advertisement for Heart+ Mega Potency in the 3 April issue of The Sunday Telegraph should NOT have been published.
The advertisement had not been approved before publication, as required by the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989 in the interests of consumer protection, public health and safety, and it contained a large number of breaches of the Therapeutic Goods Advertising Code.
The advertisement was found to be MISLEADING, likely to arouse unwarranted and unrealistic expectations of product effectiveness and used language which could bring about fear or distress.
The many other breaches found in the interim and final determinations of the Complaints Resolution Panel can be viewed on the website addresses http://www.tgacc.com.au/complaintSingle.cfm?id=519 and http://www.tgacc.com.au/complaintSingle.cfm?id=527
All advertisements for therapeutic goods that are directed to consumers MUST comply with the Therapeutic Goods Advertising Code. A complaint form can be downloaded from the website www.tgacc.com.au/complaints .
The Complaints Resolution Panel is established in the Therapeutic Goods Regulations 1990 to receive, consider and determine complaints about therapeutic goods advertisements, including those that are published in newspapers or magazines, or broadcast on TV, radio or the internet.

A category-creating correction

We'd like to officially welcome our friends in the marketing profession to Regret the Error. We've even created a new category for you. So, please, come on in and continue to make corrections to product packaging and marketing materials when you make false claims. And be sure to thank the folks at Listerine for helping you join the fray. Here's the headline that attracted out attention: "Listerine Swallows $2 Million Correction To Bottles." And here's part of the the Associated Press story that followed it:

The maker of Listerine mouthwash will spend $2 million to replace what a judge called misleading advertising suggesting the product is as effective as flossing at fighting plaque and gingivitis.
About 4,000 workers will be deployed around the country to place stickers over the claim on Listerine bottles and to remove similar advertisements that hang on bottlenecks, a lawyer for Pfizer told a federal judge Monday. Television, print and medical-journal ads using the campaign are also being pulled, and the as-effective-as-floss campaign has also been removed from the Listerine Web site, lawyer Tom Smart said.