HAVING complied to play the game by the rule, the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON) has lifted the ban placed on advertising materials of Guinness Nigeria Plc.
The council sanctioned the brewery giant for exposing its "Guinness foreign extra stout adverts on Digital Satellite Television (DStv) outside the prescribed periods allowed by the APCON Code of Advertising and Promotion guidelines.
In addition to stopping the broadcast of the adverts, APCON also withdrew all certificates of approval issued to Guinness for advertisement of alcoholic beverages from 2012 to date.
However, the ban is lifted "because Guinness complied by withdrawing all advertisements that had been scheduled to run and apologised over the breach," said Nkechi May-Nzeribe, Corporate Affairs Officer of APCON in a statement.
According to her, "sanctions meted out to the company were sequel to the deliberate breach of Article 39 of the aforementioned provision which clearly prohibits the airing of alcoholic beverages between certain periods of time."
In the Article, it is enshrined that 'advertisements for alcoholic beverages shall not be aired between 6.00 a.m. and 8.00 p.m. on radio and between 6.00 a.m. and 10.00 p.m. on television.'
Nkechi said: "But Guinness 'made of more' was aired on DStv platform on Saturday, February 2, 2013 at 16:40 hours West African time during the CAF Nations Cup match between Ghana and Cape Verde and during English Premier League live football matches even after warnings and notifications from the Council."
A letter signed by the Marketing Director of Guinness Nigeria Plc, Mr. Austin Ufomba, avers that "all the adverts for alcoholic beverages on DStv Super Sports have been stopped ... we have directed DStv Super Sports to stop the pan-African feed which beams the non-compliant materials into Nigeria" and have directed our media agency to implement the removal of all alcoholic advertising materials in line with the letter.
Ufomba apologised on behalf of Guinness stating "kindly extend our apologies to members of the ASP, who may have been aggrieved by this issue as this was not in any way deliberate." He emphasised that "as a leader in the alcoholic beverages category in Nigeria, Guinness Nigeria will continue to act responsibly and will endeavour to support APCON in carrying out her duties of advertising regulation."
The Guardian
They should be banned for all I care because their product is of no good to this country. It even helps in destroying lives..