ASA Adjudication on Powerhouse Direct Ltd

Ad

Text on a job search website, for a Junior Trainee in Marketing/Sales/PR/Customer Service, stated information about the role including "salary: £15,000 per year" and "job term: Permanent/Full-time".

Issue

The complainant, who understood that the role was commission only with no contract, challenged whether the claims:

1. "salary: £15,000 per year"; and

2. "job term: Permanent/Full-time"

were misleading.

CAP Code (Edition 12)

Response

Powerhouse Direct Ltd (Powerhouse Direct) said the "salary" and "job term" fields had to be filled in for the ad to be placed. They said the ad should have stated that the role was performance based but that, due to an administrative error by one of their trainees, this information was not included.

Assessment

1. & 2. Upheld

The ASA noted the advertised role was performance based but that this information had not been included. We also noted Powerhouse Direct said the "salary" and "job term" fields had to be filled out for the ad to be placed. However, we considered that the information about the role as presented in the ad was likely to mislead about the nature of the position and likely earnings. In the absence of evidence to demonstrate that the quoted earnings were representative of the commission successful applicants were likely to achieve, and because the ad misleadingly implied the role was for a permanent employee, we concluded that the ad breached the Code.

The ad breached CAP Code rules 3.1 and 3.3 (Misleading advertising) and 20.2 (Employment).

Action

The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told Powerhouse Direct Ltd to ensure that future ads included relevant and accurate information about the roles.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)