A. ADVERTISEMENT

I. FOOD ADVERTISEMENT

Foods must be registered for content prior to advertising

– Health protection food, medical nutritious food, food for special dietary uses.

– Nutritious products for children up to 36 months of age not prohibited from advertising specified in Article 7 of the Law on Advertising.

 Registration for food advertisement content

The registration of food advertising content shall comply with the provisions of the law on advertising and the following provisions:

  1. Before advertising, organizations and individuals having advertising products must register their advertisement contents to the authority that issued the certificate of product registration with current regulations.
  2. The advertisement content must be consistent to the effects of the product announced in the product declaration. Do not use pictures, equipment, costumes, names, correspondences of units, medical facilities, doctors, pharmacists, medical staffs, patient thank-you letters, articles of doctors, pharmacists, health workers to advertise food.
  3. For health protection foods: a) There must have a recommendation equivalent to “This food is not a medicine and has no effect as a substitute for medicine”; the writing must be clear and in a color contrasting with the background color; b) Advertisements on audio and video newspapers must clearly read aloud the recommendations specified at Point a of this Clause; c) Advertisements on audio and video newspapers with a short duration of less than 15 seconds are not required to read aloud “This food is not a medicine and does not have the effect of replacing medicines”, but must be displayed the recommendation in advertisements.
  4. An application for certification of advertisement contents includes: a) An application for approval of advertisement contents; b) The receipt of registration of the product announcement and The product declaration certified by a competent authority (a copy certified by the organization or individual); c) Sample of the product label (certified by organization or individual); d) For advertisements on audio or video newspapers, there must have the expected advertising scripts and the expected contents of advertisements recorded in video discs and audio discs; for advertisements on other means, there must have the maquette expected to be advertised (a copy of certification of organizations and individuals); đ) For advertising contents, other than the uses and features written in the product announcement, there must be proven by scientific documents (copies certified by organizations and individuals);

The documents in the application for certification of advertising contents must be shown in Vietnamese; in case of having documents in foreign languages, they must be translated into Vietnamese and notified.

  1. Procedures for issuance of the certificate of advertisement contents: a) Organizations and individuals that have advertising products shall submit their dossiers of registration for certification of advertisement contents to the authority that issued the certificate of registered product declaration; b) Within 10 working days after receiving a complete and valid dossier, the receiving authority shall examine the application and return the results. This time limit is calculated from the date stamp arrival of the receiving authority if the dossier is sent by post or the date the complete dossier is received on the online public service system.

In case of disagreeing with the advertising content of organizations or individuals or requesting for amendment, supplementation, the receiving authority shall provide explanation in writing and specify the legal basis. The dossier-receiving agency may only request the applicant to  amendment, supplement once.

Within 10 working days after receiving the amended and supplemented dossier, the receiving authority appraises the dossier and replies in writing. After 90 working days after receiving a written request for amendment or supplement, if the organization or individual does not amend or supplement the dossier, the dossier is no longer valid;