ASA Adjudication on DBC Holdings Ltd

Ad

A national press ad, for Dolphin Bathrooms, featured a picture of a bathroom with a bath, shower and sink. It was headed "all-inclusive sale all the product all the service all included". Below, text stated "complete bathrooms half price* fully installed & tiled plus an extra £500 off* all orders this week". The asterisk was linked to text that stated "from selected ranges. No other offers apply. All offers apply to UK mainland only. All discounts are based on our published list prices and products have been offered for sale nationally at full price for at least 28 days in the last six months. Individual component/unit sales are at list price. Minimum list price £6000 excluding special building work".

Issue

A customer believed the ad was misleading, because he believed it implied the offer applied to bathrooms with a minimum list price of £6000 whereas he was told there was a minimum spend of over £7000.

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

DBC Holdings (DBC) said the minimum list price of £6000 was used as the level below which discounts were not available and to discourage the purchase of individual items instead of fully designed and fitted bathrooms. They said their average order value was much higher than the minimum quoted in the ad, but it was nonetheless possible to buy a small cloakroom for the list price of £6000. They provided evidence of customer orders that showed the discount had been applied. DBC said the additional £500 off applied to orders, rather than list price, over £6000. They said they would change their advertising to reflect this more clearly.

Assessment

Upheld

The ASA noted the ad qualified the offer with the minimum list price spend required, but did not claim that this was for a complete bathroom. We noted that a small cloakroom was available for £6000 list price but considered that customers were likely to understand that the cost of a complete bathroom would vary depending on the size of the bathroom and individual requirements. We considered that they would expect to pay half the total list price, once they had spent a minimum of £6000. Because DBC were able to show the half price offer applied to list price purchases over £6000, we considered that bathrooms were available for half price as claimed. However, we were concerned that the offer of an extra £500 discount had not been explained accurately in the ad. We welcomed DBC's assurance that they would make this clear in future ads but, because the discount applied to orders rather than list price, we concluded that the ad was likely to mislead consumers.

The ad breached CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation), 7.1 (Truthfulness) and 27.4 (Sales promotions).

Action

We told DBC to ensure that future ads explained how discounts applied.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)