In posts now discovered to be “deceptive”, Lipton Ice Tea advised customers it was discontinuing its peach flavour as an early April Fools’ Day joke.
An April Fools’ Day prank carried out by Lipton Ice Tea has been banned by the advert watchdog for being “deceptive”, with the drinks model warned to not pull any related stunts in future.
The PepsiCo-owned model was the topic of 5 complaints to the Promoting Requirements Authority (ASA) after it advised customers on Instagram and TikTok that it was discontinuing its widespread peach flavour. Whereas the posts had been printed on 18 March 2025, it was revealed the subsequent day through social media that the announcement was meant to be an early April Fools.
An April Fools’ Day prank carried out by Lipton Ice Tea has been banned by the advert watchdog for being “deceptive”, with the drinks model warned to not pull any related stunts in future.
The PepsiCo-owned model was the topic of 5 complaints to the Promoting Requirements Authority (ASA) after it advised customers on Instagram and TikTok that it was discontinuing its widespread peach flavour. Whereas the posts had been printed on 18 March 2025, it was revealed the subsequent day through social media that the announcement was meant to be an early April Fools.
The complaints had been made on the idea that the posts had been deceptive, a competition that was upheld by the ASA. In its response to the grievance, Lipton Tea stated the social media posts, which had been printed organically by itself channels, had been meant to be understood as a joke.
The Instagram publish depicted a Lipton Ice Tea peach-flavoured can adorned with angel wings above textual content headlined ‘Relaxation in Peach’. The textual content advised customers that the “iconic” peach flavour was being discontinued.
“Who is aware of? Perhaps at some point, Peach will make a legendary comeback,” it learn, with the log off “#RiPeach”.
The imagery and use of phrases like “Relaxation in Peach” had been meant to sign the light-hearted nature of the publish, Lipton Tea stated. It additionally pointed to feedback on the posts from social media customers, together with the highest remark, which had 60,300 likes and stated, “This had higher be a joke”. The model stated these not solely indicated that many customers noticed the publish as a joke, however that additionally they had visibility within the feedback.
Lipton Tea additionally revealed that the unique intention had been to maintain the joke working till 1 April (April Fools’ Day) however after backlash from some customers, it made the decision to disclose the prank the very subsequent day to reassure customers and mitigate any misunderstanding.
It determined to go early with its April Fools prank so as to stand out from different manufacturers additionally making jokes that day, it stated.
Whereas the ASA recognised some humorous parts of the posts, it upheld the grievance that these had been deceptive, stating this was not sufficient to offset the potential to make customers consider the peach product was being continued.
It additionally thought of the timing of the advert in making its ruling, concluding that: “We thought of [the posts] gave the general impression that the product was being discontinued”.
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The difficulty with giving this impression was that it might affect customers’ buying behaviour.
“We thought of that buyers would probably perceive that, as a result of it was being discontinued, there could be a restricted period of time to buy a peach flavour tea product earlier than shares ran out, and in the event that they wished to buy the product, there could be a time strain to take action,” the ASA wrote in its ruling.
The advert watchdog advised Lipton Tea it was not allowed to make use of these advertisements once more, and that it should guarantee no future promoting misleadingly gives the look that merchandise are being discontinued.
For Lipton Tea’s half, it stated it had learnt classes from the posts and would make sure that any future work of this nature was extra clearly signposted and thoroughly timed to keep away from misinterpretation.
