ASA Adjudication on Government Assistance Programmes

Ad

A direct mailing, for assisted government grants, contained a loose page headed: “Grants Loans Assistance Getting the inside story on government funding How you can acquire money real quick”. A yellow post-it was attached to the promotion with a handwritten inscription that stated: “Aziz call it’s brilliant! J”. The promotion appeared to be torn along one side and the pages numbered, giving the impression that it had been ripped from a magazine.

Issue

The complainant thought the inclusion of the post-it misleadingly implied someone known to him had sent the mailing that featured his name and stated "Aziz call its brilliant! J".

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

The Government Assistance Programmes (GAP) said the yellow post-it-note attached to the ad was not personalised, it did not say it had been sent by a friend, family member or anyone else.  They said it was clear the promotion was an ad because it had advertisement printed in the far right-hand corner.  They said the purpose of the ad was to encourage recipients to ring the number at the bottom of the promotion.  GAP said they would be happy to amend the ad in line with the recommendation.

Assessment

Upheld

The ASA noted GAPs comments but considered that because the word advertisement appeared in a very small font size in the right-hand corner, it could be easily overlooked by recipients.  We welcomed GAPs assurances to amend the ad.  However, we were particularly concerned that the mailing, which looked as if it had been torn from a magazine and had a post-it note attached with a handwritten inscription, implied that it had been sent by someone known to the recipient.  Because it had not, we considered the mailing was misleading.  We were concerned that the mailing was not immediately recognisable as an ad and that its design was likely to mislead recipients.   

The ad breached CAP Code clauses 6.1 (Honesty), 7.1 (Truthfulness) and 22.1 (Recognising marketing communications and identifying marketers).

Action

The ad should not appear in the same form again.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)