ASA Adjudication on P & O Ferries Ltd

Ad

A national press ad, for P&O Ferries (P&O), stated "... this is my P&O I can come and go as I please more routes, more sailings, more choice ...".

Issue

The complainant, who believed P&O had withdrawn two of their routes two years previously and now offered fewer routes than at least one of their competitors, challenged whether the claim "... more routes ..." could be substantiated.

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

P&O said they had intended the claim "more routes" to imply, predominantly, that P&O had more ferry routes out of the UK than other UK ferry operators. They said the claim was also intended to demonstrate that they were not a company in decline and had more routes now than they previously had. They asserted that they could substantiate both interpretations of the claim.

P&O said, following the purchase of the P&O Group by DP World in 2006, P&O Ferries now included the former P&O Irish Sea operation consisting of the Cairnryan to Larne, Troon to Larne and Liverpool to Dublin routes. They said customers responding to their advertising by phone were given the option of booking an Irish sea route at the beginning of their call; several links were available on the P&O website directly through to the Irish Seas website.

They asserted that the company's Irish Sea routes had featured in their classified national press ads for some time; the company's main Ferry Guide and Unitholder brochures also carried the Irish Sea routes. They asserted that the Irish Sea routes did not always feature in their main national press ads; their inclusion depended on in which title or season the ad had appeared. They asserted that, since the week commencing 21 May 2007, ads featuring the "more routes" statement had also referred to two of the Irish Sea routes.

P&O said they had a total of seven passenger ferry routes: Dover to Calais, Hull to Zeebrugge, Hull to Europoort, Portsmouth to Bilbao, Cairnryan to Larne, Troon to Larne and Liverpool to Dublin. They argued that there were, therefore, three more passenger routes than there had been prior to the DP World takeover and one more than there had been before the two route closures to which the complainant had referred.

P&O said they were aware that one of their competitors also operated seven passenger routes; however, they knew of no UK based ferry operator that offered more than seven routes. They argued that, nevertheless, they could claim "more routes" in terms of competitor passenger operations, because all seven of their routes departed from mainland UK compared to only six of their competitors routes; their competitors seventh route ran from the Republic of Ireland (ROI). They asserted that their national press ads targeted UK households only and did not run in the ROI; they argued that they could therefore claim to have more routes from mainland UK than any other ferry operator. They also asserted that their routes serviced six different destination ports, whereas their competitors routes serviced only five.

Assessment

Not upheld

The ASA considered that, because the ad had appeared in the UK press, readers were likely to infer from the claim ... more routes ..." that P&O offered more passenger routes from mainland UK than any other UK passenger ferry operator. We considered that readers could also interpret the claim to mean that P&O offered more routes than they had previously.

We noted P&O Ferries had included P&O Irish Sea since 2006 and consumers responding to P&O advertising were given the option of booking Irish Sea routes; we considered that it was therefore acceptable for P&O to include the Irish Sea routes within their total number of routes. We noted, before the takeover by DP World, P&O had operated four routes and, before the route closures the complainant had mentioned, they had operated six routes. We noted P&O operated seven different routes, including the Irish Sea routes, from the UK mainland at the time the ad was published. We considered that they had therefore shown that they offered more routes than they had previously.

We also noted one of P&Os competitors operated six routes from the UK mainland, and understood that none of their competitors operated seven routes from the UK mainland. We considered therefore that P&O had substantiated that they offered more routes from mainland UK than any other UK passenger ferry operator.

We investigated the ad under CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation), 7.1 (Truthfulness) and 19.1 (Other comparisons) but did not find it in breach.

Action

No further action necessary.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)