ASA Adjudication on John Mills Ltd

Ad

A TV ad, for the Magic Carpet, showed wellington booted feet, followed by a dog, walking over bare floors and leaving muddy foot and paw prints behind them. The ad then compared walking on a normal doormat, which left a muddy footprint on the floor, with the Magic Carpet, which left no dirty print behind. The voice-over stated "What a mess! Muddy foot and paw prints trampled all through the house. What you need is the Magic Carpet, the miracle mat brought to you by JML ...".

Issue

A viewer, who had bought the product, challenged whether the ad was misleading, because he found that it did not reduce foot or paw prints to the extent shown in the ad.

BCAP TV Code

Response

John Mills (JML) said the Magic Carpet was capable of absorbing and holding a litre of water without saturating and provided the ASA with a test report carried out to prove its capabilities. They said the absorbency was demonstrated in the ad by water being poured on the mat, but in order to show its use in a more realistic way, which was likely to be experienced by consumers, they had included a muddy footprint walking over the carpet. They believed that, because of the Magic Carpets absorbency, the mat would soak up the mud and water collected on the bottom of a wellington boot.

Clearcast said the purpose of the demonstration was to illustrate the ability of the mat to absorb liquid, and water stained with mud was used to make the contrast clearer to viewers. They did not believe that the ad suggested that the mat would retain more mud than a conventional doormat.

Assessment

Upheld

The ASA noted the test report measured the amount of water the mat was able to absorb, but its ability to soak up mud and dirt had not been tested. Although we understood that the mud was mixed with water in order to make the mat's absorbency clearer to viewers, we considered that the comparison of walking on a normal doormat, which left a muddy footprint on the floor, with the Magic Carpet, which left no dirty print, gave the impression that the Magic carpet would remove all mud and dirt from boots or shoes.

Furthermore, we considered that the voice-over claim "What a mess! Muddy foot and paw prints trampled all through the house. What you need is the Magic Carpet" reinforced the impression created by the demonstration that walking on the Magic Carpet would soak up mud from boots or shoes and, having used it, would leave the floor clean. Because we had not seen evidence to show that this was achievable, we concluded that the ad was misleading.

The ad breached CAP (Broadcast) TV Advertising Standards Code rules 5.1.1 (Misleading advertising), 5.2.1 (Evidence) and 5.2.2 (Implications).

Action

The ad must not be broadcast again in its current form.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Broadcast)