Yesterday ASA ruled against Woolworths SA in the controversial Frankie’s Soda saga.
Woolworths were accused of stealing an idea for vintage sodas from Frankie’s Sodas and ASA ruled that they remove the phrase “Good Old Fashioned” from the label of their similar soda range.
We asked yesterday whether Woolies would merely tweak their label or pull the range completely?
Last night Woolworths SA CEO Ian Moir made the following statement on their Facebook page:
The
Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled today that we remove the phrase
“Good Old Fashioned” from the labels of our vintage soda range.
We are disappointed by this decision as we believed that no one could own this
descriptor.
However, we have always been clear that we would abide by the ASA decision.
Whilst we maintain that we have not copied the Frankie’s range, it is clear
that public sentiment is against us. Customer opinion is much more important to
us than the right or wrong of this issue, and the trust of our customers is far
more valuable to us than a product range.
With this in mind, and despite only having been asked to remove the “Good Old
Fashioned” phrase from our labels, we have taken the decision to withdraw this
range from our shelves.
But mostly, I want to apologise for disappointing you, our customers.
Yours
Ian Moir
It’s great to see that customer opinion means something to this well loved company.
What are your thoughts?