The two complaints both centred on the reduction of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol. Both ads were promising to reduce the LDL cholesterol by similar amounts.
Van den Bergh Foods, the Unilever unit that makes Flora, objected to a Benecol press ad and brochure which claimed that by eating a certain amount of margarine, consumers could reduce their cholesterol by 14%
Van den Bergh argued that to achieve the claimed reduction, consumers would have to eat more considerably more than the national average of spread a day. It objected that most consumers would not achieve this.
The Advertising Standards Authority upheld the complaint and concluded that the claims in the ads could not be substantiated.
The makers of Benecol, McNeil Consumer Nutritional, complained about a Flora pro.activ press ad claiming that average daily use of its product would reduce LDL's by 10%-15%. McNeil argued that significantly higher amounts of Flora pro.activ would need to be taken to achieve this affect.
The ASA considered the claims misleading and that studies showed that people with a healthy lifestyle could only expect to reduce levels by 10%. The complaint was upheld.
However, a second complaint by McNeil was not upheld. It related to information that suggested people moving from a high-fat diet to healthy diet could achieve average reductions of 10%-15%.