New York, NY-July 17,2003. The Children's Advertising Review Unit of the Council of Better Business Bureaus (CARU) is pleased to announce that Amerifit Nutrition Inc. has agreed to work with CARU by pulling two commercials for its vitamin gumball, VITABALL®, from Radio Disney and by implementing age-screening practices at its Website, vitaball.com.

CARU's Self-Regulatory Guidelines for Children's Advertising (Guidelines) expressly state, in part: "Medications, drugs and supplemental vitamins should not be advertised to children." With respect to the online collection of personally identifiable information, the Guidelines also state, in part: "In Websites where there is a reasonable expectation that a significant number of children will be visiting, age-screening mechanisms should be employed to determine whether verifiable parental consent or notice and opt-out is necessitated per the Data Collection section of the Guidelines. Care should be taken so that screening questions are asked in a neutral manner so as not to encourage children to provide inaccurate information to avoid obtaining parental permission."

The VITABALL® campaign came to CARU's attention through a television commercial that aired on a program with a large audience of children under the age of 12. Amerifit Nutrition contended that its target audience for the TV spot was moms between the ages of 25 and 49; the advertising schedule provided by Amerifit Nutrition confirmed that, with two exceptions, its TV media buys matched those target demographics and did not include a sizable audience of young children.

The two radio commercials that raised concerns under the Guidelines featured the happy exclamations of a child winning concert tickets in a sweepstakes or receiving a CD premium consisting of songs from top Radio Disney artists. A third radio commercial that CARU reviewed was deemed effectively tailored to the "mom demographic" targeted by the advertiser and, thus, did not breach the Guidelines in CARU's opinion.

The company's Website, vitaball.com had several different areas where personally identifiable information was collected without appropriate age screening. A child under 13 could even submit offline contact information, such as a home address, without prior parental consent. Amerifit Nutrition agreed to implement a neutral age-screening process, including a tracking mechanism, to prevent under-aged children from improperly furnishing personally identifiable information on the site.

CARU's inquiry was conducted under NAD/NARB/CARU Procedures for Voluntary Self-Regulation of National Advertising. Details of the inquiry, CARU's decision and the advertiser's response will be included in the next NAD/CARU Case Report.

Members of the press who wish to see a copy of the decision now should email CARU.

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The National Advertising Review Council (NARC) was formed in 1971 by the Association of National Advertisers, Inc. (ANA), the American Association of Advertising Agencies, Inc. (AAAA), the American Advertising Federation, Inc. (AAF), and the Council of Better Business Bureaus, Inc. (CBBB). Its purpose is to foster truth and accuracy in national advertising through voluntary self-regulation. NARC is the body that establishes the policies and procedures for the CBBB's National Advertising Division (NAD), the Children's Advertising Review Unit (CARU), and the National Advertising Review Board (NARB).

NAD and CARU are the investigative arms of the advertising industry's voluntary self-regulation program. Their casework results from competitive challenges from other advertisers, and also from self-monitoring traditional and new media, including the Internet. The National Advertising Review Board (NARB), the appeals body, is a peer group from which ad-hoc panels are selected to adjudicate those cases that are not resolved at the NAD/CARU level. This unique, self-regulatory system is funded entirely by the business community; CARU is financed by the children's advertising industry, while NAD/NARB's sole source of funding is derived from membership fees paid to the Council of Better Business Bureaus.