Johnny Vegas PG Tips ad claiming superior pyramid bags ruled fair by ASA – Daily TV round-up

A TV ad which claimed that PG Tips' pyramid tea bags were better than round tea bags has been cleared by the ASA following a complaint from rival Tetley.

In the ad, which stars comedian Johnny Vegas alongside a monkey puppet, PG showed their bags appearing to perform better than the circular kind.

Tetley then lodged a complaint, arguing that their circular bags and the Tetley brand – though not mentioned by name – were being 'denigrated' by their rivals, owned by Unilever.

But the ASA has now ruled that the pyramid bags are indeed better than their round counterparts, after testing them and finding that they had 77 per cent more room for the tea leaves to circulate.

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“Unilever provided test results which showed that the infusion of tea, at 40 seconds and two minutes into brewing, was greater when using a pyramid teabag than when using a round teabag. We therefore concluded that the ad did not exaggerate the capability and performance of the advertised product and was not misleading,” read the ruling.

“Unilever provided relevant modelling and measurements to demonstrate that the tea in the pyramid teabag would have more room to move… and that the pyramid teabag had a greater brewing efficiency than the round teabag.”

In the ad, Vegas says: “Monkey, you know how you always say, ‘there’s no other tea to beat PG’ … What if you’re lying?”

The monkey then 'proves' the point with a test showing more brewing with the PG bag compared to the circular bag.

“PG Tips uses pyramid bags, so if we test one against a regular tea bag ... you’ll see the tea has got more room to move, freeing the great fresh taste for a perfect cuppa,” says Monkey.

The ASA added: “While a large portion of round teabags were owned by Tetley, we considered that consumers would not immediately identify a round teabag as being a Tetley teabag.

“Because we considered that the comparison was not made with an identifiable competitor, we concluded that the ad did not denigrate Tetley.”

A spokesperson for PG said that they were 'thrilled' with the result. Tetley have made no comment. [Daily Mail]

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