The Advertising Standards Authority has rejected a complaint that Plan UK’s “anti-child marriage” TV advert misled audiences and has said it will take no further action.
The advert (video below), which first ran at the start of the year, features two girls and states: "Today, girls as young as eight face the worst day of their lives, their wedding day”.
The advert also said "You can help stop this by sponsoring a girl with Plan UK today. Your sponsorship can mean a young girl can get an education, have access to clean water, healthcare; all the things that give her strength and hope.
“You'll see what a difference you make to her and her friends. And you'll love receiving letters from the girl you sponsor and the moving updates we'll send you”.
The complaint, made to the ASA in March, challenged “whether the ad misleadingly implied donors would sponsor, and receive updates from, an individual child”.
Plan UK told the ASA that the ad was a “fair and accurate representation” of the way its sponsorship process worked and that sponsors helped both individuals, as well as communities, with their donations.
In its adjudication, the ASA did acknowledge that the repeatedly used phrase “sponsoring a girl” could be, ”interpreted by viewers to mean donations would fund individual children” but said that the “overall impression” of the advert breached no advertising codes.
“We understood that donors were assigned an individual child with whom they could send and receive letters and that their donations were put towards local initiatives which benefitted the community as a whole, including the sponsored child, for example in relation to education, health and clean water," the ASA ruling said.
“For those reasons, we concluded the ad was not misleading”.
The ASA investigated the advert under BCAP Code rules 3.1 and 3.2 (Misleading advertising) and 16.3.1 (Charities), but did not find it in breach.
Plan UK’s response
Mike Thiedke, Plan UK’s director of public engagement, said: “Our way of working has been honed over 78 years to have maximum impact for millions of the world’s poorest children. It’s important to us that people know how we do that.
“That’s why we explicitly explain in all our communications that while you sponsor an individual child, your money goes to that child’s country where it is spent on grassroots projects.
“It’d be impossible to build schools, equip health clinics and protect the rights of children across communities if the money raised went directly to a single child.”
The ASA’s adjudication comes three months after Transport for London banned a Plan UK advert from being run on the Tube and some train networks.
