NAD’s Molson Coors Decision: The Watering Down of the Objective Claim Standard

Recently, NAD released a decision in a case involving a Molson Coors ad that has received more press attention than any NAD decision in recent memory. In the ad, athletes are celebrating the completion of a difficult workout by opening a can labeled ​“Extremely Light Beer” and pouring the liquid over their heads while an announcer says ​“Light beer shouldn’t taste like water. It should taste like beer.”

Anheuser-Busch filed a challenge using NAD’s Fast-Track SWIFT process, arguing that the videos falsely disparage Michelob Ultra and other light beers by claiming that consumers find them to taste like water. Molson Coors pointed out that no competitors were named and the tagline was simply ​“a subjective opinion about what beer should and should not taste like, which cannot be objectively proved or disproved.” In other words, mere puffery ​“because it is not sufficiently specific and material enough to create expectations in consumers.” But NAD didn’t agree. It deemed Coors’ claim measurable and objective and found it to be unsupported by evidence.