ASA Adjudication on Bright Publishing Ltd.

Ad

The front cover of Digital SLR User magazine claimed "The UK's No.1 magazine and website for Digital SLR photographers".

Issue

Halo Publishing, who believed their own magazine, Digital SLR Photography, had a higher readership, challenged whether the claim "The UKs No.1 magazine and website for Digital SLR photographers" could be substantiated.

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

Bright Publishing said several publishers used the claim "No.1" and it did not necessarily refer to circulation or copy sales.  They argued that it was not a sales-related claim and was never intended to be one.  They claimed that the strapline "The UK's No.1 magazine and website" related to the editorial content of their magazine and website.  They argued that if they had used the strapline "The UK's No.1 selling magazine..." then they might have anticipated complaints, given that neither of the SLR magazines was audited by the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC).  

They said the sales estimates supplied by Halo Publishing's news trade distributor did not take into account readership, subscribers, or visits to and registered users of their website.  They supplied information about the number of registered members of, and unique visitors to their website, and the estimated proportion of those who were from the UK.  They pointed out that theirs was the first publishing site to appear to anyone who entered Digital SLR or DSLR into the Google UK search engine.  They asserted that that was due to the popularity of their website and its breadth of content.  They believed, therefore, overall their magazine and website reached more people than any other Digital SLR magazine and website combined.

Bright Publishing said they had removed the strapline from the next issue and would not use it until the ASA had adjudicated on the matter.

Assessment

Upheld

The ASA noted Bright Publishings argument that the claim referred to editorial content and not to sales.  We also noted they believed, nonetheless, that their magazine and website combined were read by more people than any other Digital SLR magazine and website combined.  

We considered that readers were likely to infer from the claim "The UK's No.1 magazine and website for Digital SLR photographers" that in the sector of digital SLR photography, Digital SLR User was the best-selling magazine and that its website attracted the largest number of visitors.  We noted the distributor figures supplied by the complainant showed that their own magazine sold more copies on average per issue than Digital SLR User.  We also noted, at the time the claim appeared, neither of the magazines or their accompanying websites was audited by ABC and there were therefore no official figures available to show sales or website traffic.  We considered that we had not seen comparative evidence to show that Digital SLR User had the highest sales or circulation or that its website attracted the most visitors.  We concluded that the claim was likely to mislead.  

The ad breached CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation), 7.1 (Truthfulness) and 19.1 (Other comparisons).

Action

We told Bright Publishing not to use the claim "No. 1 magazine" in future publications unless they held comparative data to substantiate it.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)