Health Insurance

A television advertisement for GloHealth featuring various scenes of mothers with their children referred to the following:

“There’s a woman who is up before dawn to get the breakfast, to clear and wash and work and tend and play. A woman who works all day and returns home to put in another shift and then takes the time to read a story or listen to yours.

There’s a woman who will sit up all night with a sick child and will not rest until the fever is broke. Who waits at the school gates rain hail or shine, who feeds the pets, makes the beds, puts the candles on the cake and makes your wishes for you.

There’s a woman who spends all her time, all her money, all her love, on the things and the people that matter, and through every hour she will always feel that she is not giving, not doing enough.

Mothers you do enough now let us do something for you. Mothers you’re amazing. GloHealth my cover my way.”

On-screen text provided the following information:

“Introducing Glo Doc. A doctor who’s there 24/7.
Available on a range of plans.”

The complainants said that while the aim of GloHealth’s campaign was to sell health insurance for children to mothers that by focussing exclusively on women (in both the text and visual material used in the campaign), the campaign implied that fathers had no role in caring for their children in terms of their health. The complainants also considered that the advertisement implied that parenting and care of a family was solely a woman’s duty and negated any input by fathers or male partners.

The advertisers said that that their ‘Mothers are Amazing” campaign was just one advertisement in a wider campaign entitled ‘Are Amazing’. The idea behind the campaign was to celebrate all of the things that people found amazing and the advertisement in question should not be viewed in isolation but as part of a much wider campaign.

The advertisers said that the first advertisement in the campaign centred on the theme that ‘Runners are Amazing’ and had featured a range of different genders and demographics.

In the case of ‘Mothers Are Amazing’ they wanted to celebrate the unique relationship that people had with their own mothers, and indeed the life-changing experience of being a mother. At no point had they set out to exclude or alienate anybody, as this would go against everything they stood for as an organisation and individuals.

The advertisers said that the purpose of their advertising had been to sell health insurance using GloDoc as a differentiator and a reason to purchase. GloDoc offered unlimited access to a GP through online face-to-face consultations Monday to Friday or over the phone 24/7, 365 days of the year. Furthermore they said that anybody who wished to purchase the GloDoc Plan could do so.

By focussing exclusively on women in the element of the campaign to hand the advertisers said that they were paying a tribute to mothers. They had never implied that those outside of this focus group were less caring or in fact that mothers were more caring parents than their partners. They said that by focussing on a particular group of people they were not negating or diminishing the work done by other people outside of that group.

Complaints not Upheld.

The Complaints Committee considered the details of the complaints and the advertisers’ response. The Committee examined the advertising and while they noted that the advertiser had chosen to target a particular sector of the market, in this case mothers, that there were no restrictions in place which prevented fathers from purchasing the health insurance policy in question.

The Committee did not consider that by focussing in this advertisement on mothers that the advertisers were suggesting that mothers were better at parenting than fathers or that a mother’s place was in the home.

In the circumstances the Committee did not consider that the advertising was in breach of the Code.

Action Required:
No further action was required in this case.