FTC settles charges with maker of Ensure protein drink
The marketer of Ensure, a protein supplement drink, reached an agreement with the Federal Trade Commission to stop making product claims that the FTC charged were unsubstantiated and untrue. The settlement between the FTC and Abbott Laboratories, in Abbott Park, Ill., was reached Jan. 2.
Under the agreement, Abbott does not admit any violation of the law, but has agreed to stop making the claim that physicians recommend that healthy adults supplement, or replace, meals with Ensure. The FTC alleged Abbott did not have a reasonable basis to substantiate this advertising claim.
According to the commission's complaint, Abbott surveyed physicians and asked them to assume that they would recommend a supplement for adults who were not ill. Abbott then asked the physicians to select the brand they would recommend most often.
Abbott will also stop making the claim that Ensure provides vitamins in an amount comparable to typical multivitamin supplements. The typical multivitamin supplement provides at least 100 percent of the recommended daily intake of vitamins, but Ensure provides 50 percent of the RDI of Vitamin C and 25 percent of the RDI of other vitamins, according to the FTC complaint.
"Nutritional beverage products like Ensure may provide a benefit if you have a medical condition that makes it difficult to eat, or if you are using them in place of an occasional skipped meal. Abbott went too far, however, when it suggested that doctors recommend Ensure for healthy active people, like those pictured in the ads, in order to stay active and healthy. Before consumers spend their money to use such products as a regular supplement to their diet, they should check with a doctor or nutritionist," said Jodie Bernstein, director of the FTC's bureau of consumer protection.
Ensure accounts for 80 percent of protein supplement sales, according to the commission. Abbott spent $45.4 million to promote Ensure during the first nine months of 1996, nearly 70 percent more than it spent during the same period the previous year, according to Competitive Media Reporting, an advertising tracking firm.
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