Gareth Mentzer with a Wool Life sustainable dog bed and a bag of wool byproduct it is made from. Photo / Jack Riddell
A Hawke’s Bay company thought it had come up with a sustainable first, so it created an advertisement celebrating the fact.
A person disagreed and complained, leading the small business to go face to face with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).
Wool Life, based in rural Hastings, makes eco-friendly products for the home from wool byproducts.
Among its range of products is a dog bed made from wool-rich recycled textiles, sourced from Norsewood sock producer Norsewear.
Wool Life managing director Gareth Mentzer has a dog with arthritis and was looking for a sustainable dog bed but couldn’t find anything online.
This led Mentzer and his team to develop the first dog bed recycling scheme in New Zealand.
“We made sure every bit that we added to the dog bed could be turned back into dog beds again and created what we believe and have now proved is the most sustainable dog bed in New Zealand,” Mentzer said.
Mentzer said the dog beds are circular, as in they can be recycled into more dog beds over and over again.
The dog beds launched in May last year alongside a digital marketing campaign created by Auckland-based company NZ Digital.
Wool Life had worked with NZ Digital before and had full trust that the company would create a great launch campaign.
That campaign used the words; “New Zealand’s most sustainable dog bed. Recycled, recyclable, and built to last”.
Mentzer said this claim was not “greenwashing” - a marketing tactic where businesses make false, misleading or exaggerated claims about products, services or practices to appear more environmentally friendly.
“We ensured we had substantiation for the claims we made,” he said.
In July, a complaint came into Wool Life’s inbox from an unknown person challenging the company’s claim that they produce the most sustainable dog bed in the country.
This surprised Mentzer.
“The information regarding our sustainability credentials was in the ad,” he said.
“We ensured that we talked about 80% wool-rich recycled textiles, that you can recycle the dog bed. So, we’d put content into the ads.”
Mentzer said the company replied to the email and asked for evidence as to why the complainant disagreed with them, but received no reply.
Mentzer said he was even more surprised when a complaint was laid with the ASA over the ad in October, and the authority accepted the complaint.
“It is quite confronting when you’re a small business, not having dealt with that before,” he said.
“But when you believe something passionately, when you’re passionate about your product, you’re passionate about why you’re doing it, and you’ve got the evidence to prove it, you go through the process and trust you’ll get the outcome you want.”
After going through the complaints process, the ASA Board came back with the decision to uphold the complaint, despite Mentzer being adamant that there was nothing that had disproved their evidence.
Mentzer and Wool Life took the ASA’s decision to the appeal board, who unanimously found in favour of Wool Life.
Mentzer was pleased, explaining the decision meant they could continue selling their dog beds with their sustainability claim.
“We’re an open, honest, transparent business,” he said.
“If someone can prove to us we’re wrong, we’d be the first to go, ‘absolutely, we’re wrong’. But at no point through the process could anybody tell us that.”
ASA chief executive Hilary Souter said all complaints are considered, but any party to a complaint can appeal a ruling from the complaints board chair, or a complaints board decision.
Souter said in Wool Life’s appeal application to the ASA, they provided “evidence that had not been available to the complaints board”.
“From time to time, the appeal board does make a different decision to the complaints board. This is usually because additional information/evidence has been provided.”
She said it wasn’t common for a complaint to be upheld and then dismissed on appeal, with only two appeal applications being heard by the appeals board in 2024. Both were dismissed.
“Truthful presentation is a key requirement of the ASA Codes. The substantiation provided by the advertiser must prove the claim being made,” Souter said.
“We value consumers using our complaints process for ad compliance concerns and acknowledge the advertising industry’s response in addressing and correcting ads that do not meet the standards.”
Jack Riddell is a multimedia journalist with Hawke’s Bay Today and has worked in radio and media in the UK, Germany, and New Zealand.