ASA Adjudication on French Sole Ltd

Ad

A magazine ad for French Sole stated "30% OFF FRENCH SOLE Every girl about town should have at least one pair of ballet pumps..."

Issue

The complainant claimed the shoes were always sold at the discounted price and challenged whether the 30% discount was a genuine offer.

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

French Sole explained that they had two types of patent shoes: the 'Pirouette' and the 'Pirouette 1'.  The 'Pirouette' shoes retailed at £65 and were only available in a black patent colour whereas the 'Pirouette 1' shoes cost £90, were available in a variety of colours, were made from better quality leather, had leather soles and had an intricate design within the sole of the shoes.

They stated that the "30% off ..." offer was a one-off promotion with Happy magazine and related only to the 'Pirouette 1' shoes.

French Sole also provided the ASA with receipts showing that, during the promotion, the 'Pirouette 1' shoes cost £63 and after, retailed at the original price of £90.

Happy magazine explained that, to take advantage of the 30% discount, the customer had to log on to the French Sole website then click on the Happy magazine icon, which led the customer to the 'Pirouette 1' range of shoes.  They said, because no other shoes were made available under the Happy magazine icon, it was clear to the customer when they visited the website that the promotion referred only to 'Pirouette 1' shoes.

Assessment

Upheld

The ASA considered that the substantiation provided by French Sole showed that they were genuinely offering a 30% discount on 'Pirouette 1' shoes to readers of Happy magazine.

We understood, however, that the complainant had seen the 'Pirouette' shoes at their normal price of £65 and, because they looked very similar to 'Pirouette 1' shoes, had believed they were the same shoes as those in the promotion that were being offered at £63 with a claimed 30% discount.  We noted the ad did not specify which particular type of patent shoe the offer applied to. Because the ad stated " ... 30 per cent discount on French Sole's patent collection ...", we considered that readers would infer that the promotion applied to all patent shoes. We concluded that, because it did not make clear which shoes were included in the promotion, the ad was misleading.

The ad breached CAP Code clauses 7.1 (Truthfulness) and 27.4 (Sales promotion rules).  We also investigated the ad under CAP Code clause 3.1 (Substantiation) but did not find it in breach.

Action

We told French Sole that, in future ads, they should make clear to which shoe(s) the promotion referred and should not suggest all shoes of a particular material were included in the offer if that was not the case.