The poster featured two highchairs. The left one had a plate with two steaks on it between a knife and a fork with text, which "2 steaks will help give your toddler their daily iron".
The right highchair had a bottle of Aptamil milk on it with the text: "Our milk is another way to support their growing development". At the bottom of the page, text stated: "Milupa Apatamil Growing Up Milk. Giving your toddler a head start."
A footnote stated: "There are many sources of iron. Milupa Aptamil Growing Up Milk is designed to be part of a toddler's diet".
A doctor made a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority saying that the main reason for iron deficiency in under five-year-olds was over-reliance on milk and insufficient food.
Miulupa said that they had not received any other complaints about the poster and submitted research that backed up their evidence about how much iron was provided in two rump steaks compared with 6.1mg of Aptamil milk.
The company also provided research that demonstrated that iron-deficient children tended to drink more cow's milk than iron-sufficient children and that iron-sufficient children were more likely to drink follow-on milk.
Milupa agreed with the complainant that many dieticians were concerned about over-reliance on cow's milk in the toddler diet, however stated that Aptamil was designed to counteract reliance on cow's milk.
The ASA concluded that by featuring steaks, the ad implied that Aptamil was a replacement for food rather than for cow's milk and could irresponsibly discourage appropriate weaning on to iron-rich food.
"We asked Milupa to ensure that in future, they made clear that Aptamil was a replacement for cow's milk, not food," the ASA said in its ruling.
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