ASA Adjudication on Dock Acres Car Boot Sale

Ad

An ad for a car boot sale in a regional newspaper, the Westmorland Gazette, was headlined "GIANT CAR BOOT SALE!!!!" The text continued "SUNDAY AUG 24TH AND BANK HOL MON AUG 25TH DOCK ACRES - BORWICK JCT 35 M8 - OR A591 BURTON IN KENDAL RD. FOLLOW OUR BIOG YELLOW SIGNS". Text in the body of the ad said "THE BIGGEST EVENT ON THE BUSIEST WEEKEND -ALWAYS THOUSANDS OF VISITORS - HUNDREDS OF STALLS… IT'S GOING TO BE A BIG ONE!!". Two telephone numbers were shown.

Issue

The complainant challenged whether it was misleading to claim that:

1. this was the biggest car boot sale event in the local area;

2. the event received thousands of visitors; and

3. the event had hundred of stalls.

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

Past Masters (Lancs) Ltd (Past Masters), who ran the Dock Acres car boot sale event, said they had records of attendance at Dock Acres and at other local events within a six-mile radius on Bank Holiday weekends over the past two years.  The attendance records for the other local events were collected by an eyewitness on behalf of Dock Acres, who visited the other events and counted stalls; they were unable to obtain visitor numbers.  They said those records showed they had been outperformed in terms of stallholder numbers by a competitor event once in the past two years.  They said Dock Acres charged an entrance fee per car entry and they had full records of visitor numbers for the past 12 years.  They counted entries by car, not by individual visitors, and calculated an average carload as 2.5 visitors.  Using this method to calculate visitor attendance, the records for events on Bank Holiday weekends in 2006-2008 showed the lowest number of visitors was 2805 and the highest was 4400.  The lowest number of stalls was 189 and the highest was 417. They said they carried out surveys about their event which received positive comments and which suggested Dock Acres was a larger event than its competitors.  They also said that they were in a healthy financial position.

Assessment

1. Not Upheld

The ASA noted that Past Masters believed their event was the biggest of its kind within a six-mile radius because it had more stalls than other local events.  We noted the claim "THE BIGGEST EVENT ON THE BUSIEST WEEKEND" was supported by figures Past Masters had collected themselves over previous bank holiday weekends at their own and competitors' events, which showed there were more stalls at their own event than at their competitors events.  We acknowledged that their comparative figures contained stallholder numbers only and that Past Masters had not been able to record visitor numbers at other events, however we did not think it unreasonable that readers would interpret biggest and busiest in this context to mean the number of stalls at the event.

Because the claim "THE BIGGEST EVENT ON THE BUSIEST WEEKEND" was based on stallholder attendance only and Past Masters demonstrated that they had more stalls than their competitors, we concluded that they had substantiated the claim.

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.

2. & 3.  Not upheld

We noted the records sent by Past Masters showed their bank holiday events had been regularly attended by 2000+ visitors and had had between 180 and 400 stalls.

Because their attendance records supported the claims "ALWAYS THOUSANDS OF VISITORS - HUNDREDS OF STALLS", we concluded the ad was unlikely to mislead.

On points (2) and (3), we investigated the ad under CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation) and 7.1 (Truthfulness) but did not find it in breach.

Action

No further action necessary.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)