ASA Adjudication on Match.com International Ltd

Ad

A TV ad, for an online dating service, showed a man and woman sat next to each other in a shoe shop. The woman tied her laces but used the lace from the man's shoe instead of her own. When she moved she realised that she had tied her shoe with the man's and they looked at each other. A voice-over stated "There's a word for that feeling when someone's on your wavelength ... it's called affinity. This weekend it’s free to try matchaffinity and contact all your compatible matches. matchaffinity.com." On-screen text stated "18+ see matchaffinity.com for more details. FREE WEEKEND Fri-Sun from 4 pm".

Issue

A viewer challenged whether the ad was misleading, because they could not contact all of their compatible matches for free.

BCAP TV Code

Response

Match Affinity explained that they were the sister site of the online dating service, match.com and that the free weekend offer only applied to members of the matchaffinity.com service.

Match Affinity said that users could register with their website for free and upon registration, members were encouraged to complete a detailed questionnaire. The results of the questionnaire were used to determine the members compatible matches. Members could send the first e-mail to their compatible matches for free and thereafter they had to subscribe in order to continue communicating with their compatible matches.

Match Affinity said that during the free weekend, members were able to communicate with their compatible matches for free regardless of whether or not they had a subscription with matchaffinity.com. They explained that non-subscribing members were able to use the full matchaffinity.com service which included sending and receiving e-mails and viewing photographs without charge. They explained that they ran the promotion to encourage non-subscribing users to see the benefits of having a subscription.

Match Affinity acknowledged that the complainant experienced problems contacting some of their compatible matches. On investigating the complainants experience, they said the complainant had received the message asking them to subscribe because of a technical error. Although they could not determine the exact reason for the message, they believed it was due to an internal error recognising the complainant as someone who had an account with the match.com website. They explained that, notwithstanding the problems the complainant experienced, the complainant was still able to, and continued to use, the service for free throughout the weekend.

Match Affinity provided evidence which showed that the promotion had been well received and that their members (subscribing or otherwise) had taken advantage of it. They believed the complainants experience was an isolated one, due to a technical error and they considered they had demonstrated that their members had been able to use service for free. They did not believe the ad was misleading.

Clearcast stated that the evidence provided by Match Affinity showed that the service would be free to all members over the weekend. Because users would be able to use all aspects of the service, Clearcast did not consider the ad was misleading.

Assessment

Not upheld

The ASA noted the free weekend offer only applied to members of matchaffinity.com and we considered that that was clear from the ad. We noted that the documentation provided by Match Affinity showed that members of the service had been able to take advantage of the free weekend to use the full service. We also understood that there were no limits to how many times members could use the service, or contact matches, during the offer period.

We understood from Match Affinity that the complainant was asked to subscribe during the free weekend owing to an internal, technical error. Whilst we acknowledged the complainants frustration that she received that message when trying to contact particular compatible matches, we also noted that the complainant had still been able to use the service throughout the free weekend. Because we understood that matchaffinity.com members could use the service for free during the weekend offer period, we concluded that the ad was not misleading.

We investigated the ad under CAP (Broadcast) TV Advertising Code rules 5.1.1 (Misleading advertising), 5.2.11 (Use of the word 'free') and 5.2.3 (Qualifications) but did not find it in breach.

Action

No further action necessary.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Broadcast)