ASA Adjudication on SpicerHaart Group Ltd

Ad

A regional press ad for an estate agent stated "We are proud to be the number one estate agent in harlow [sic]. More Sold boards than any other agent." It showed a pie chart breaking down market share by business. Small print stated "Source: Collated and published by vizzihome.com, information sourced from estate agent internet data. Due to variations on publishing policies, not all agents & property may be represented. Whilst every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of the data, no responsibility can be made for any errors or omissions. Data collected between 2nd Jan-15th May 2009".

Issue

Kings Group, a competitor, objected that

1.  the claim "we are proud to be the number one estate agent in harlow [sic]" was misleading, because the data taken from vizzihome.com was not a reliable record of market share, because it was based on unregulated self-reporting by agents.

2. the claim "More Sold boards than any other agent" was misleading, because it implied the data was based on sold board presence, whereas it only represented web presence; and

3. the way the information was collected meant that it did not represent a defined area that readers would understand as 'Harlow', which was misleading.

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

1. SpicerHaart Group Ltd t/a Haart Estate Agents (Haart) said Vizzihomes carried out careful research and based their findings on the internet property listings of agents in a particular area, at a particular time.  They said the data was based upon the number of properties identified as having been sold, on a weekly basis. They believed that provided a reliable basis for assessing market share, because agents listed online all the properties they had sold.  They said Vizzihomes reviewed a range of internet portals to ensure coverage was accurate.  They felt the Vizzihomes data was likely to provide a more accurate picture of market share than looking at 'Sold' boards, because they believed all properties were advertised online, but some vendors did not put 'Sold' boards up outside their properties, and this could skew the market data.  They nonetheless felt that the total number of listings marked online as 'sold' by each agent was a fairly reasonable approximation for 'Sold' board coverage, because each agent was likely to have roughly similar proportions of customers who preferred not to have a board up outside their home.

2. They agreed that the ad implied that the data was based upon an actual board count, but did not believe this was misleading, because they considered there was a very strong correlation between the virtual board count carried out by Vizzihomes and actual board numbers.  They stated they had amended the ad in this respect to avoid any future confusion.

3.  They said they had amended the ad to refer to local postcodes, to clarify the geographic area covered in the ad.

Assessment

1.  Upheld

The ASA considered that the claim "the number one estate agent in harlow [sic]" was likely to be interpreted by readers to mean that Haart had sold more homes in Harlow.  We understood that the data collected by Vizzihomes relied on agents advertising all of their properties online and ensuring they were accurately marked online as being sold.  We noted that the ad stated "Due to variations on publishing policies, not all agents & property may be represented. Whilst every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of the data, no responsibility can be made for any errors or omissions".  We therefore considered that some estate agents and some properties might not be counted.  In addition, we had not seen evidence that showed that all properties marked online as 'Sold' had had their sale completed.

Because Vizzihomes had indicated that they could not be certain that all agents were represented in their data and that they could not ensure that it represented the number of sales actually completed, we did not consider it was sufficiently accurate to support the claim "the number one estate agent in harlow [sic]".  We also did not consider that it was sufficient for the ad to include a disclaimer setting out the limitations of the data collection process.  We concluded the ad was misleading.

On this point, the ad breached CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation), 7.1, 7.2 (Truthfulness), and 19.1 (Other comparisons).

2. Upheld

We considered that most people would understand the claim "More Sold boards than any other agent" to refer to the number of Sold boards outside properties, but noted the claim was based on the number of properties which were marked online as sold, according to the Vizzihomes data.  We acknowledged that Haart had amended the ad to clarify that the data was based upon properties marked online as sold and not on actual Sold board presence, but noted that we had not seen sufficient evidence to support the validity of the Vizzihomes data.  In addition, we noted that some vendors might not have boards up outside their properties and considered there was potential for discrepancies arising between the number of Sold boards an agent had placed and the number of properties an agent had sold.  We advised Haart that we considered board presence to be an inadequate method of substantiating comparative claims about property sales.

Because of that and because we had not seen sufficient evidence to support the validity of the data relating to completed sales marked online, we concluded the ad was misleading on that point.

On this point, the ad breached CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation), 7.1, 7.2 (Truthfulness), and 19.1 (Other comparisons).

3. Upheld

We noted we had not seen evidence to show that the Vizzihomes data related to an area that was defined as Harlow, and concluded that the ad was misleading on this point.

On this point, the ad breached CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation), 7.1, 7.2 (Truthfulness), and 19.1 (Other comparisons).

Action

The must not appear again in its current form.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)