ASA Adjudication on T J Hughes Ltd

Ad

A regional press ad for TJ Hughes department store stated " … SPRING CLEARANCE LIQUIDATION …".

Issue

The complainant, who believed TJ Hughes were not in liquidation, challenged whether the claim was misleading.

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

TJ Hughes said they were not in liquidation and believed the claim "SPRING CLEARANCE LIQUIDATION" did not imply they were. They sent a dictionary definition of the word liquidation and argued that the specific definition the conversion of assets into cash explained the meaning they had intended to convey; they pointed out that the word liquidation was qualified by the words spring and clearance. They also sent a dictionary definition of the word clearance and argued that the definition the process of being cleared applied to their stock situation. TJ Hughes argued that the use of the word spring made clear that the process of stock liquidation was taking place in the spring season, which implied a passing activity, not a permanent one as might be associated with a business liquidation.

TJ Hughes offered to place an asterisk next to the claim "SPRING CLEARANCE LIQUIDATION" and link it to a footnote that would state "We are not closing down, we are liquidating some of our stock" in future similar promotions.

Assessment

Upheld

The ASA noted TJ Hughes were not in liquidation; we also noted their rationale for using the claim. We considered that readers were likely to infer from the claim "SPRING CLEARANCE LIQUIDATION" that TJ Hughes were selling all their stock at reduced prices because the company was closing down. Because we understood that that was not the case, we considered that the claim "SPRING CLEARANCE LIQUIDATION" was misleading. We noted TJ Hughes offer to link the claim to a footnote that would state "We are not closing down, we are liquidating some of our stock" but considered that that footnote would contradict the claim "SPRING CLEARANCE LIQUIDATION" in the body copy and that the proposed amendment was therefore insufficient.

The ad breached CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation) and 7.1 (Truthfulness).

Action

We told TJ Hughes to remove the claim "SPRING CLEARANCE LIQUIDATION" and not to imply in future ads that they were in liquidation if that was not the case.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)