ASA Adjudication on ATP Publishing

Ad

A direct mailing from wwmdirectory.com, in the form of an invoice, promoted an advertising link from their website www.Wwmdirectory.com. The mailing was headlined "Invoice" and stated "Payment for this Pro-forma Invoice due of (sic) you require this service". A table in the middle of the mailing was divided into two columns. Text in the left hand column stated "Advertising link from www.Wwmdirectory.com. Guaranteed no 1 - 3. On the relevant page of Google. All enquiries go direct to client website ... 12 Months advertising @£70.36 Inclusive of TAX ... " The right hand column was headed "Rate" and contained the price "70.36". Beneath the table was the text "Balance Due: £70.36".

Issue

Design LSM challenged whether the ad was misleading because it was presented as a genuine invoice for services by the advertiser that required payment.

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

wwmdirectory.com did not respond to the ASA's enquiries.

Assessment

Upheld

The ASA was concerned by wwmdirectory.coms lack of response and apparent disregard for the Code, which was a breach of CAP Code clause 2.6 (Non-response). We reminded them of their responsibility to respond promptly to our enquiries.

Because the mailing was headlined "Invoice" and contained a table with a product description, price and the text "Balance Due: £70.36", we concluded it implied the recipient owed wwm.directory.com money, and the ad was misleading.

The ad breached CAP Code clauses 2.6 (Non-response), 6.1(Honesty) and 7.1 (Truthfulness).

Action

We told wwmdirectory.com to seek guidance from the CAP Copy Advice team before advertising again and asked CAP to inform its members of the problem with wwmdirectory.com.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)