ASA Adjudication on Play Ltd

Ad

A magazine ad for Play.com was headlined "Save up to 60%". It showed the Pirates of the Caribbean "At World's End" DVD for sale at £9.99. Above this price was the text "SAVE 60%", beneath it "RRP £24.99" was written with a line through it. Small text at the bottom of the page stated "Prices correct at time of going to press. Play.com reserves the right to change prices".

Issue

1. The complainant challenged whether the ad was misleading because the DVD was priced at £14.99 when he tried to buy it.

2. The ASA challenged whether the Recommended Retail Price (RRP) of £24.99 was genuine.

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

1. Play Ltd (Play.com) said the price of £9.99 had been available since 20 August as a pre-order incentive for customers. They said the release date for the DVD was 19 November 2007. They underlined that they had hoped to run the £9.99 offer price for the DVD until well into October. However, they said they had received an unprecedented response to the offer by the end of September, and had therefore taken the decision to revert to the usual selling price of £14.99 on 1 October. They said they had submitted the ad to the magazine before 30 August in good faith, in the belief that they would be able to continue running the offer for a significant period of time after the on-sale date of publication (28 September 2007). They pointed out that they had included a pricing caveat in the ad to cover any changes to the price of the titles it featured.

2. Play.com said the RRP was worked out from the dealer price using a standard formula. They said the RRP of £24.99 did not vary within the market and sent evidence that showed two online retailers were selling the product for £24.99 in December 2007. They said their pricing policy was not determined by their competitors and was based on their own cost structure.  

Assessment

1. Upheld

The ASA noted that Play.com had reverted to the price of £14.99 because of an unexpectedly large response to the offer, we also noted that the ad included a disclaimer stating that they reserved the right to change prices. However, because the £9.99 offer appeared in the magazine on 28 September, and the DVD reverted to the price of £14.99 on 1 October, the offer price was available to readers of the magazine for three days only. Because the offer price was available to readers for three days only, but the magazine was on sale throughout October, we concluded consumers were likely to be disappointed if the advertised price was not available and therefore considered the ad was misleading.

On this point the ad breached CAP Code clause 7.1 (Truthfulness).

2. Upheld

We noted that Play.com used a standard formula to arrive at the RRP based on the price set by the distributor, and that that RRP was consistently quoted by other retailers throughout the pre-order period as the point from which they discounted. However, because the DVD was available only as a pre-order product, and was not on general release at the time the ad appeared, we concluded that  the RRP did not reflect the price at which the DVD was generally sold and was therefore not genuine.

On this point the ad breached CAP codes 7.1(Truthfulness) and 15.5 (Prices).

Action

We told Play.com not to repeat the ad. We advised them not to advertise offers that were subject to change at short notice in publications with a long lead-in time and not to use an RRP when advertising products not yet on general release.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)