ASA Adjudication on Esher Mail Order Ltd

Ad

A mail order ad for a telescope stated "The Ultimate Zoom TELESCOPE with Super POWER OPTICS! Now you can get up close and personal with wildlife, your favourite sport or the distant stars thanks to this incredibly high powered Zoom Telescope. Its 20 x 60 fully coated, precision lens offers up to 6000% MAGNIFICATION! ... Just £49.99 plus p&p RRP £199.99".

Issue

One complainant challenged whether:

1. the description of the magnification as 6000% was misleading, because it exaggerated the magnification of the telescope;

2. the description of the telescope as "ultimate" was misleading, because he believed that there were other telescopes with larger magnifications and larger objective lenses; and

3. the advertisers could substantiate that the telescope had 20 x 60 mm precision lenses.

The ASA challenged whether:

4.  the RRP of £199.99 for the telescope was genuine.

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

1. Esher Mail Order Ltd (Esher) submitted a copy of the telescope's specification from their supplier, which stated that the telescope had a 20 to 60 times variable magnification zoom lens and a 60 mm objective lens. They said 6000% was the correct mathematical treatment of a 60x magnification. Esher argued that that was no different from a previous ASA investigation where we had accepted a description of a pair of binoculars as 2000% because they had a 20x magnification.

2. Esher argued that the word 'ultimate' was a subjective term open to individual interpretation. They said 'ultimate' was also defined in Roget's Thesaurus as 'extreme', 'superlative' and 'supreme', which they also considered to be subjective. Esher explained that they were not claiming that larger products were not available, but rather that their product had a very large magnification and could easily be described as extreme, superlative or supreme.

3. Esher submitted the results of a test carried out by an independent test house in order to determine the magnification of the telescope lenses. The test results showed that the 20x magnification measurement was correct. The test also showed that, allowing for a +/- intolerance of 3, the 60x magnification measurement was actually measured to be 54x. Esher said that the test house believed that that discrepancy was a result of manufacturing intolerances. Esher said, on the basis of that information, they would amend the ad to say 55x rather than 60x.

4. Esher said the telescope was sold on its website and in its two stores at the RRP of £199.99. They submitted a copy of a page from their website that showed the item for sale at £199.99. They also submitted a weekly sales report from one of their shops, which demonstrated that the telescope had been sold at the RRP of £199.99 before the ad appeared.

Assessment

1. Upheld

The ASA noted Esher's argument that "6000% magnification" was a mathematically correct way of expressing the magnification of the telescope, usually expressed as 20 - 60x60. Although we acknowledged that to express magnification in percentage terms was not industry standard, we considered that consumers would not be misled about the magnification properties of the telescope in this way. However, we also understood that the accepted way of stating the variable magnification of the telescope featured in the ad was 20 - 60x60, in contrast to the 20x60 designation used in the ad, which was normally used to refer to fixed magnification telescopes. We also considered that the results from the test house showed that the magnification of the telescope at the 60x setting was actually measured to be 54x. Although we acknowledged that Esher had amended the ad to reflect that, we concluded that because the 60x magnification measurement was inaccurate, and because it had not been written in the full designation normally used for a variable magnification telescope, the ad was misleading.

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

2. Not upheld

We noted Esher's argument that the word 'ultimate' was their subjective opinion of the product, and was used to mean 'superlative' or 'supreme'. We also noted their argument that they were not claiming that larger products were not available. We considered that the claim "the Ultimate Zoom TELESCOPE with Super POWER OPTICS!" would be understood by most consumers to be the advertiser's subjective opinion of the desirability of their product. Because of that we concluded that the claim was not misleading.

On this point, we investigated the ad under CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation) and 7.1 (Truthfulness) but did not find it in breach.

3. Upheld

We noted that the results from the test house showed that, allowing for a testing intolerance of +/- 3, the 60x magnification setting was actually measured to be a magnification of 54x. We also noted that the test confirmed that the measurement of the 20x magnification setting was accurate. We acknowledged Esher's assurance that they would amend the ad to state that the telescope had a 20 - 55x rather than a 20-60x magnification. We considered, however, that because the telescope had a variable magnification, its designation should be written in future as 20 - 55x60.  Because of that, and because the 60x magnification figure used in the ad was inaccurate, we concluded that the ad was misleading.

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

4. Not upheld

We noted that Esher had submitted documentation which showed that the telescope was available on their website, and had been sold in one of their shops, at the RRP of £199.99. We considered that Esher had demonstrated that the RRP for the telescope was genuine, and we concluded that on this point the ad was not misleading.

On this point we investigated the ad under 3.1 (Substantiation), 7.1 (Truthfulness) and 15.5 (Prices) but did not find it in breach.

Action

We welcomed Esher's assurance that they would amend the ad to reflect the results of the test on the telescope, and we reminded them that the correct designation for variable magnification telescopes should be used when writing the magnification measurements.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)