Nad Reviews Advertising For Bayer One-A-Day All-Day Energy

New York, NY – July 12, 2007 – The National Advertising Division (NAD) of the Council of Better Business Bureaus has recommended that Bayer Healthcare discontinue durational claims and modify the name of its All-Day Energy multivitamin. NAD determined that this durational claim is not adequately supported by the evidence presented to NAD during its inquiry. Bayer Healthcare has said it will appeal to the National Advertising Review Board (NARB) NAD’s decision as it relates to the product name.

NAD has expanded its review of dietary supplements, pursuant to a series of grants from the Council for Responsible Nutrition. Advertising claims for the Bayer product were challenged by Wyeth Consumer Healthcare, a maker of competing vitamin products. NAD, the advertising industry’s self-regulatory forum, examined television, print, Internet and labeling claims. Wyeth challenged the following claims:

• “Helps You Feel Mentally and Physically Energized All Day”
• “Helps Support Mental Alertness and Energetic Feeling During Throughout the Day with An Extended-Release Guarana Blend.”
•  “All-Day Energy” (which is part of the name of the product itself.)
• “Specially Formulated to Support Energy All-Day Long”
• “Complete multivitamin specially designed to support an Active Mind and Body All-Day Long,”
• “Helps You Feel Mentally and Physically Energized All Day with an Extended-Release Guarana Blend”

The advertiser based its claims on the inclusion of two categories of ingredients – a complete spectrum of B vitamins, and a timed-release guaranal caffeine blend.

While B vitamins do, in fact, assist in the food-to-energy conversion process, there was no evidence in the record to support the claim that this process would provide energy throughout the day.  Further, NAD noted, there was no evidence in the record that the guarana caffeine interacts in any way with the B vitamins to provide energy. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has held that 100-200 milligrams of caffeine every three to four hours “helps restore mental alertness or wakefulness.”

The Bayer product, NAD noted, contains 90 milligrams of caffeine, released over the span of several hours.