Marketing - Wednesday, June 1, 2011 10:22 - 0 Comments

i newspaper advert labelled misleading

An advert for the Independent’s sister newspaper, i, has been labelled as misleading and banned.

The Advertising Standards Agency were unhappy at the newspaper’s claims that it contained no celebrity gossip stories. 

They declared that the newspaper’s ’Caught and Social’ column could be interpreted as celebrity news by readers and that the advert could no longer be aired in its current form.

According to The Guardian, the marketing news centres around a television advert which claims that i “squeezes the content of a quality paper into one that’s small and beautifully informed.”

It goes on to say that no tabloid-style stories are covered and that it has “no celeb gossip nonsense, just intelligent stuff.” 

It was also ruled that the newspaper would no longer be able to make their “no celeb gossip nonsense” claims again.

Independent News and Media responded to the ruling by stating that their celebrity stories are unlike other newspapers because they are based solely on facts rather than hearsay.

Journalism.co.uk report that although a multi-million pound advertising campaign allowed good sales of i when it launched in October last year, its circulation dropped by over 6 per cent between March and April.

This figure represents the biggest drop of any daily national newspaper in England.