For pet food, the significance of advertising is to recommend their own products to pet owners through various forms, introduce the advantages of the product, attract consumers to buy the product, for the profitability of the enterprise, but bad or even false advertising, on the one hand, it will mislead consumers, causing economic losses to consumers, on the other hand, it will have a negative impact on the company's reputation, which is not conducive to the long-term development of the enterprise, and serious or even violate the law. What are the forms of advertising for pet food? How to achieve advertising compliance? What are the consequences of non-compliance? This article will discuss.
01 Common forms of advertising
For pet food, common forms of advertisements include claims on pet food labels and product introductions on TV, newspapers, leaflets and other media. For pet food manufacturers, brochures and leaflets printed in various media, especially in major exhibitions, are the most convenient and fastest way to publicize their products, while for ordinary consumers, claims on labels are the most common and intuitive way to understand product information and advantages. For the average consumer, labeling claims are the most common and intuitive way to learn about product information and benefits. Labeling claims are also the most problematic area in our daily work.
02 Advertising Compliance Claims
In pet food labeling, claims are divided into three categories: ingredient claims, characteristic claims, and functional claims. There are two basic requirements for claims, one is to prohibit making claims that have the effect of preventing or treating pet diseases, and the other is to have supporting materials. Ingredient claims that the content of the product content claims, including the presence or absence of certain feed ingredients or feed additives, the content of certain feed ingredients, product flavor and unique attributes, as well as a comparison with the same enterprise products, etc., need to use the product ingredients list as a proof of the material, prone to the problem of claiming that the content of the content of feed ingredients and feed ingredients is inconsistent with, as well as the two directories of the substances outside of the non-containing claims; Characteristic claims, i.e. claims related to certain characteristics of products, such as natural, fresh, low-fat, low-energy, new products, etc., need to be reflected on the label with relevant auxiliary information or the enterprises should provide relevant materials as proofs, and the problems that are likely to arise are the misuse of the claim of "freshness", and the use of similar claims, such as "new products", etc., beyond the period of time; functionality claims. "Functional claims, i.e., claims about product functions, such as promoting growth and development, preventing non-disease problems, etc., need to use the physiological effects of certain ingredients as proof, usually from literature, and the problem that is likely to arise is the claim of immune function. Functional claims are also the most concerned and problematic aspect of our daily consultations on claims.
Pet food belongs to a kind of feed, and according to Article 21 of the Advertising Law of the People's Republic of China, advertisements for feed products shall not contain content guaranteeing efficacy and safety, using the name or image of professionals or organizations and users for recommendation and certification, stating efficiency, or violating safe use procedures. In other words, pet food advertisements shall not publicize the efficacy, safety and efficiency of the content, and shall not make use of the so-called "celebrity effect" of professional or authoritative persons from the perspective of researchers or users to advertise the products. It is important to note that advertisements should not utilize so-called "celebrities" to recommend products from the perspective of researchers or users, in order to avoid blind adherence of consumers to "celebrities" and the potential influence of "celebrities" on ordinary consumers. This is to avoid consumers' blind adherence to "celebrities" and the potential misleading of "celebrities" to ordinary consumers, but it does not mean that pet food enterprises are not allowed to look for spokespersons for their brands, only that the spokespersons should not publicize the products from the perspective of the users, which has already been a lesson learned from the past, and the pet food enterprises should pay great attention to this point.
03 Legal Liability
If the claimed content of the pet food label is not compliant, according to the Measures for the Administration of Pet Feed and Regulations on the Administration of Feed and Feed Additives, the feed administration department of the local people's government at or above the county level will order the relevant responsible person to make corrections; if the situation is serious, confiscate the illegal proceeds and the illegal sale of the product, and may impose a fine of up to 30% of the amount of the goods value of the product sold in violation of the law.
If the advertisement of pet food violates the requirements of the Advertising Law of the People's Republic of China, the market supervision and management department will order to stop publishing the advertisement, order the advertiser to eliminate the influence within the corresponding scope, and depending on the seriousness of the case, impose a fine from double to five times of the advertisement cost, and if the advertisement cost can't be calculated or is obviously low, impose a fine from 100,000 yuan to over 1 million yuan, and even take measures such as revoking the business license.
04 Summary
Compliant pet food advertisements can convey correct product information to consumers and help companies actively promote their products, which is a win-win situation; non-compliant pet food advertisements will not only mislead consumers, but also have a negative impact on the company's reputation, which can be said to be a lose-lose situation, so I hope pet food companies will carefully consider the pros and cons of the situation.
