ASA Adjudication on Indesit Company UK Ltd

Ad

A national press ad for a fridge had the headline "Quadrio. The revolutionary new 4 door fridge freezer". Text underneath stated "Distinctively designed with a frost free spacious interior, providing the ideal atmosphere for your food. It features independently opening doors, and can save you 50% energy*". Footnoted text at the bottom of the ad stated "*Compared to a standard 2-door 70cm wide fridge freezer. Saving based on a reduction in heat gain or cold air loss by opening one fridge door or one freezer drawer".

Issue

The complainant challenged whether the claim "save up to 50% energy" misleadingly implied that the product could save up to 50% of the total energy used by a fridge freezer, rather than a saving in the energy required to restore the internal temperature of a compartment once the door had been opened.

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

Indesit Company UK Ltd (Indesit) said the footnoted text clearly stated that the energy saving claim related to the opening of the fridge and freezer drawers and not to the total energy used by the fridge freezer. Indesit explained that the claim was based on the results of research carried out on the product, for which they provided copies.

Assessment

Upheld

The ASA noted that the study provided by Indesit assessed the energy saving to be made when opening the fridge or freezer doors using probability distribution. We understood that the probability distribution was based on a number of assumptions made by the study designers about the frequency and duration of door openings, and one test that measured the cold air loss from the fridge and freezer compartments of both the product and control two-door fridge-freezer after the doors had been left open for ten minutes. We noted that the study results showed that, in terms of probability, the energy saving for the fridge and freezer door in combination was greater than 50%. However, we also noted that we had not seen any data that measured the actual energy used by either the Quadrio or control fridge-freezer overall, or in relation to fridge and freezer door opening. We understood that the amount of energy used by a fridge freezer would depend on how full the unit was, and that the more products there were inside the unit the less energy would be needed to keep the fridge or freezer at its stabilised temperature. We noted that the study provided by Indesit was based on the assumption that the fridge-freezers were empty, and we considered that that test would not necessarily represent consumers' use of the product.

Notwithstanding that, we considered that consumers were likely to understand the body copy claim "can save you up to 50% energy" to mean that the Quadrio used up to 50% less energy in total than comparable models, rather than to refer to the loss of cold air caused by opening one fridge or freezer door. Although we noted that the basis of the claim was explained in footnoted text, we considered that that text contradicted rather than qualified the body copy claim. Because of that, and because we did not consider that the probability study was sufficient to support the claim that the Quadrio could "save you up to 50% energy", we concluded that the ad was misleading.

The ad breached CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation) and 7.1 and 7.2 (Truthfulness).

Action

The ad must not appear again in its current form.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)