Marketing Mea Culpas: FTC gets make-goods from Bayer, Bumble Bee.

Bayer Corp. will run a $1 million consumer education campaign and Bumble Bee Seafoods will run a $200,000-plus coupon program in separate settlements reached recently with the Federal Trade Commission.

Pittsburgh-based Bayer agreed in January to clarify its pitch that aspirin helps prevent heart attacks and strokes. A February-through-May effort will distribute brochures titled “Aspirin therapy – Is it right for you?” via print ads, a toll-free number, and doctors’ offices.

The company also will add a tagline to ads that more strongly urges consumers to consult their doctors about an aspirin-a-day regimen. The FTC complained that Bayer’s ads implied such a regimen would benefit the general population.

A separate January ruling forces Bumble Bee, San Diego, to run a coupon offer to make good on an earlier offer of 75 cents off the purchase of tuna. Shoppers had to buy five cans to get the discount. The FTC contends the offer was misleading because the coupon was printed on the back of the label, so shoppers couldn’t see the required purchase until after they bought a can. The front of the label implied shoppers only had to buy one can to get the discount.

To make good, Bumble Bee must distribute at least 7.6 million coupons via in-store tear pads giving 75 cents off any two cans or multi-packs of albacore tuna. If that costs less than $200,000, Bumble Bee must pay the difference to the U.S. Treasury.

“Cents-off deals should make sense to consumers,” says Jodie Bernstein, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “Companies that offer savings through coupons and rebates have an obligation to say what they mean and mean what they say.”