South Africa’s Advertising Regulatory Board (ARB) has upheld a complaint from Heineken against South African Breweries over the use of the term “demi sec“.
According to a notice from the national advertising watchdog, Heineken alleged Anheuser-Busch InBev-owned SAB was misleading consumers by using the demi sec descriptor in a YouTube commercial for Brutal Fruit drinks.
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Heineken said the beverages could not be considered to be wine under “the relevant legislation”.
It argued the drinks “constitute ‘grain fermented alcoholic beverages’ as defined in law”.
According to the ARB, the Dutch brewer claimed SAB was “misrepresenting it as a wine product, which is misleading and in contravention of the applicable legislation”, and that the demi sec term is typically understood to describe “a semi-sweet wine”.
In its ruling, the ARB said: “All indications and all the information placed before the directorate suggest that the term demi sec is, in a South African context, almost exclusively used to refer to wine based products. This is borne out of the relevant portion of the Liquor Products Act Regulations, online search results, and online references.”
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By GlobalDataBy using the descriptor, the advertising watchdog ruled SAB was “creating an association that does not exist in reality. It is not phrased in an aspirational context, and the extravagant visuals do not elevate the phrase to parody or obvious hyperbole”.
The ARB added the inclusion of glasses in the commercial that are typically used to drink wine or Champagne means “The wording is aggravated”.
SAB has been asked to remove any reference to the demi sec descriptor from its products, while ARB members have been asked to decline any advertising from Brutal Fruit that includes the term.
Both SAB and Heineken have been approached by Just Drinks for comment on the ruling.
Heineken is also said to have claimed that SAB’s use of the terms “bubbly” and “spritzer” in the advert also suggest reference to a wine-based drink or sparkling wine.
SAB argued the use of the term bubbly was not present in the commercial Heineken had raised in its complaint, and added that the term, as well as spritzer, “would not be interpreted as a reference to the ingredients or manufacturing process, and would not be seen as an indication that this is a wine-based product”.
The ARB noted the term was present in a separate video commercial on Brutal Fruit’s Instagram page. However, the watchdog said it did not see the use of the bubbly term as problematic, given in the commercials, the term was used as an adjective, “describing either a drink, a product or a personality”.
Reflecting on the use of the spritzer term, the ARB noted SAB’s inclusion of the word on its packaging for Brutal Fruits had been raised in a previous complaint in 2020 by Distell, though this was not the primary concern in the ruling.
In its 2020 ruling, the ARB noted that “applicable legislation does not define the word ‘spritzer'”. In light of this, the ARB said in its present ruling that it would assume “no such legal definition exists”.
Following several searches of the term through online retailers, the ARB said it also found a variety of drinks “not all of which appear to be wine”.
“This might be interpreted to suggest that the term Spritzer is not necessarily understood to refer exclusively to a drink containing wine and soda water, or similar mixtures,” the advertising watchdog said. “It can be accepted, however, that there will be people who interpret the term in this manner.”
