ASA Adjudication on Yell Ltd

Ad

A poster for Yellow Pages claimed “On average, every £1 invested in Yellow Pages generates £25 of business*”. A footnote stated “*Source: Saville Rossiter-Base 2004-2005. Based on a survey of approximately 3,000 UK adults per month over a year. Figures quoted are averages, so individual results will vary dependant on size, type of advert and directory area – no guarantee of future behaviour is implied. TM Trademark of Yell Limited”.

Issue

Mailboxes Etc challenged the claim "On average, every £1 invested in Yellow Pages generates £25 of business".

Investigated under CAP Code codes 3.1 (Substantiation) and 7.1 (Truthfulness).

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

Yell said the claim was based on an external survey performed by an independent research agency called Saville Rossiter-Base (SRB) and on Yell's own internal data on revenue received from their own customers.

They said SRB conducted approximately 3,000 telephone interviews every month with UK adults who were randomly selected and not informed that the survey was being conducted on behalf of Yell.  They said the claim in the poster was based on the interviews conducted between April 2004 and March 2005.  

Yell said interviewees were asked if they had used a Yellow Pages directory or Yell.com within the last two days and whether they had looked for a new business or a business they had previously used.  Interviewees were also asked whether they used a paid ad or a free line entry to identify the businesses, whether they made any purchases and how much they had spent.  Yell referred to purchases made from businesses which interviewees had not previously used as "new business purchases".  

Yell said SRB then weighted the results of the survey in accordance with industry standards so that they represented geographical and demographic characteristics of the UK adult population.   They then grossed up the weighted figures to give figures which estimated the likely responses of the UK population as a whole.

Yell said they took the estimated number of new business purchases made by the UK population as a result of using Yellow Pages and multiplied it by the proportion of UK adults who identified businesses from paid ads to estimate the number of new business purchases that were a result of paid ads.  They multiplied that figure by the average value of a new business purchase to calculate the amount of revenue the Yellow Pages generated from new business purchases.  Yell divided that figure by the amount of revenue they received from advertisers to calculate the average return on investment.

Yell said the calculations behind the claim included new business purchases only, which made the claim more conservative.  They said, if the calculations had included both new business purchases and purchases made from businesses which interviewees had previously used, then the claimed average return on investment figure would have been more than £25 for every £1 spent.

Yell said the headline claim in the poster made clear that the return on investment stated was an average and was followed by an asterisk linked to text stating "Figures quoted are averages, so individual results will vary dependent on size, type of advert and directory area - no guarantee of future behaviour is implied".

Assessment

Not upheld

The ASA noted the claim was based on approximately 3,000 telephone interviews SRB had conducted with randomly selected individuals and businesses every month for a year.  We considered that, because the data from those interviews had been weighted and grossed up according to industry standards, the results were representative of the UK population as a whole.  We considered that Yell had accurately calculated the amount of revenue the Yellow Pages generated from new business purchases and the average return on investment.

We considered that, because the headline claim "On average, every £1 invested in Yellow Pages generates £25 of business" and the footnote "Figures quoted are averages, so individual results will vary dependent on size, type of advert and directory area - no guarantee of future behaviour is implied" made clear that the return on investment stated was an average figure, readers were likely to understand that not all businesses would achieve that return on investment.  We concluded that Yell had substantiated the claim and that the ad was unlikely to mislead.

We investigated the ad under CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation) and 7.1 (Truthfulness) but did not find it in breach.

Action

No further action required.