ASA Adjudication on National Pen Ltd
National Pen Ltd
Finnabair Industrial Park
Dundalk
Co. Louth
Republic of Ireland
Date:
19 December 2007
Media:
Direct mail
Sector:
Business
Number of complaints:
1
Complaint Ref:
42501
Ad
A direct mailing sent to businesses stated "Introductory Squiggle Pen Offer ... Buy 1, Get 1 FREE! ... 100 £76.00 + 100 FREE".
Issue
One complainant challenged whether the claim "100 £76.00 + 100 FREE" was misleading, because when she visited the advertiser's website she found that 100 pens were priced at £39.
CAP Code (Edition 11)
Response
National Pen Ltd (National Pen) said the current price for the Squiggle pen in the UK was £39 for 100 pens. They said that they had recently tested different prices and would be reviewing their results by the end of the year. They explained that once a decision had been made on the price for the Squiggle pen, they would adjust all communications accordingly.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA noted that National Pen was currently testing the prices of its products. We also noted that the current UK price for the Squiggle pen was £39 for 100 pens. We recognised, however, that that was significantly less than the advertised price of £76 for 100 pens in the direct mailing. We therefore considered that the cost of the pens in the ad had been increased from their normal selling price, and that that could be in order to cover the cost of the 100 extra free pens described in the ad. Because the 100 extra pens were not free, and because the pricing testing strategy employed by National Pen could cause customers to pay significantly more than the unit price for the pens, we concluded that the ad was misleading.
On this point the ad breached CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation), 6.1 (Honesty), 7.1 (Truthfulness) and 32.2 (Free offers and free trials).
Action
We told National Pen not to use the ad again its current form. We told them not to use the term 'free' in future if they could not provide evidence that their offers were free. We also told them to make sure that their pricing strategy was transparent. We advised National Pen to seek guidance from the CAP Copy Advice team when preparing future ads.
Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)