Cancel the Kiwi summer: ice cream doesn’t make you happy.

7 November 2019
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Free Speech Coalition says it is crazy overreach by the Advertising Standards Authority to order a take down of an ice cream sign that includes the apparently irresponsible claim that “ice cream makes you happy”.

Free Speech Coalition spokesman Stephen Franks says, “Talk about creaming it. These clipboard zealots are surely whipping up work if this is what they need to focus on. The Advertising Standards Authority is supposed to be about protecting consumers about misleading claims - not moral pontification about issues such as ice cream waist lines and Kiwi summer quenchers.”

“These people’s head will explode when they read the byline on Red Bull ads. But with today’s nutty decision, most Kiwis would probably cheer at that.”

“Rights of free speech should be no less assured just because it is ‘commercial speech’. It is reassuring that the Advertising Standards Board is presently not a government authority. But its moralising is still adding to threats to traditional freedoms.”

ENDS

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