ASA Adjudication on CE Installations

Ad

A radio ad, for CE Installations, said “If you get work done on your home electrics, you must make sure the people carrying out the work are Part P Registered… and N.I.C.E.I.C. Approved!”

Issue

The complainant, who believed the N.I.C.E.I.C. was one of five government approved industry bodies that operated the Part P approval scheme, thought the claim you must make sure the people carrying out the work are … N.I.C.E.I.C. Approved! was misleading.

Response

Wire FM agreed that the ad was misleading. They said it had not been their intention to mislead listeners and that they had believed the ad to be compliant at the time it was broadcast. They said that, in preparing the ad, they had acted on information given by the client, who had approved their script. They said that, on hearing of the complaint, they had withdrawn the ad immediately and re-recorded it without the misleading claim. They said the client had also responded quickly to the complaint and had expressed regret that the commercial misled. They said they were looking into a system of more robust local clearance and checks at the point of brief taking and script approval to prevent similar problems in future.

Assessment

Complaint upheld

The ASA welcomed Wire FMs quick response to the complaint and noted they had already removed the claim. However, we considered that, because the N.I.C.E.I.C. was one of several bodies that operated the Part P approval scheme, the claim was misleading when broadcast.

The ad breached CAP (Broadcast) Radio Advertising Standards Code section 2 rule 3 (Misleadingness).

Action

We welcomed the action taken by Wire FM to ensure that the ad did not appear in the same form again.