French advertising authorities reject Stan Smith claims
Advertising standards bodies in France have upheld a complaint from a consumer about claims adidas has made about its Stan Smith Forever shoes.
Specifically, the complaint said claims about recycled content and the contribution the shoes can make to addressing the problem of plastic waste were misleading. In August, a special jury set up by the ARPP, France’s professional regulation body for advertising, found that the consumer’s complaint was valid.
The jury said that advertising for the shoes in France in the early part of 2021 was at odds with ARPP’s policy on sustainability claims in publicity campaigns. It agreed that claims around a figure of a minimum of 50% for recycled material were unfair because they did not make it clear enough that this statement referred only to the material used to make the upper of the Stan Smith Forever.
Adidas uses “a series of high-performance recycled materials” in this part of the shoe, using a proprietary name for mix, Primegreen.
Its other objection was to the positioning in the publicity of a logo reading ‘End plastic waste’ beside adidas’s own logo on publicity posters and of the use of an image of a Stan Smith shoe stamping on a used plastic drinks bottle.
On this point, the jury said: “The plastic used to make the shoe may come from discarded plastic waste, but this does not make that plastic recyclable. Therefore, at the end of its life, the shoe will add to the mass of non-recycled plastic waste.” It concluded that making or buying these shoes would make no contribution to ending plastic waste.
