ASA Adjudication on Isiris Racing Services

Ad

A press ad for a betting tipster service stated "ISIRIS ... SAVE OVER £700 NOW. Our annual fees are very reasonable at just £2,450 up to 31st December 2007. But as a goodwill offer to celebrate recent successes, we are currently reducing this fee to £1,745. This is a saving of over £700". The ad went on to state "£100,000 challenge!! It is well known that we consider ourselves supreme in what we do and believe that nobody has ever, or will ever, come close to matching our achievements over the past 15 years. To emphasise this, for the past 10 years, we have offered a £100,000 challenge to any person or organisation who think they can outmatch our incredible network of informants by producing more profits than us over 10 races".

Issue

Lord Lipsey of Tooting Bec challenged whether:

1. the £700 saving mentioned in the ad was misleading, because it referred to a seven-month offer and not the full year customers got for a higher fee; and

2. the claim "for the past 10 years, we have offered a £100,000 challenge" was misleading, because he had never seen such an offer advertised.

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

1. Isiris said that their website and literature made it clear that fees were fixed at the same annual amount, whether one joined in January or December. They said on that basis, any reduction in the fee at any stage of the year was by definition a "saving".

2. Isiris said the £100,000 challenge had been available for ten years.

The Racing Post submitted copies of two ads that referred to the challenge, which had appeared in their publication in 2004.

Assessment

1. Upheld

We noted Isiris' argument that the £2450 annual fee was a fixed fee payable for the whole, or any part, of the 2007 calendar year. We noted the goodwill offer was £705 less than the annual fee. However, we considered that the claim, "Our annual fees are very reasonable at just £2450 up to 31st December 2007", was ambiguous and suggested the fee was a rolling annual subscription rate that could be paid at that rate up until 31st December 2007. We also considered that it was unclear that the goodwill offer of £1745 was a reduced fee, which applied to a reduced seven-month service that customers who enrolled with Isiris in May would receive. Because the ad did not make it clear that the £2450 fee was a fixed rate that applied at any time between 1st January 2007 and 31st December 2007, and because the reduced membership offer of £1745 advertised in May was for a reduced period and not for a full twelve months, we concluded that the claim "This is a saving of over £700" in the ad was misleading.

On this point the ad breached CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation) and 7.1 (Truthfulness).

2. Upheld

We noted the documents submitted by The Racing Post showed the £100,000 challenged had been offered by Isiris in 2004. However, because Isiris had not provided evidence that they had offered the £100,000 challenge for the past ten years, we concluded that on this point the ad was misleading.

On this point the ad breached CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation) and 7.1 (Truthfulness).

Action

We told Isiris not to describe the reduced enrolment fee as a saving and to make it clear that the annual fee applied from 1st January to 31st December. We also told them not to say that they had offered the £100,000 challenge for ten years unless they held evidence to substantiate the claim. We advised them to seek guidance from the CAP Copy Advice team on their future advertising.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)