ASA Adjudication on Interflora British Unit

Ad

A promotional e-mail for Mother's Day gifts was headlined "Free delivery: Mother's Day by Interflora". Text continued "Free Delivery Offer! ... At Interflora we're experts at delivering emotions because we specialise in delivering exquisite, expertly presented gifts. Plus, order today, and the delivery is FREE!*"An asterisk was linked to a small-print footnote that stated “Free UK standard delivery worth £4.99. Order must exceed £24.99. Offer ends midnight 25 February 2008.”

Issue

The complainant believed the ad was misleading because, when she ordered two bunches of flowers for Mother's Day, she found that there was a £5 delivery charge to pay on each.

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

Interflora British Unit (Interflora) said they had not intended to mislead consumers and were committed to ensuring future marketing communications were very clear about Free Delivery Offers. They said at present it was only at Mother's Day and Christmas that they imposed additional peak charges for specific premium delivery services. They said, in the lead up to Mother's Day, they sent 14 newsletters, six offering free delivery. They said the majority of these were mailed to their full customer base. They said their database consisted of customers who had previously purchased from them and these customers were therefore used to receiving Interflora promotional material. They said they did not believe their promotion had caused widespread confusion as only one complaint had been recorded.

Interflora said that, from their own research, they believed consumers were aware that retailers imposed additional delivery charges out of hours and at premium times. They said they accepted that the offer could have been communicated more clearly and had already briefed their marketing team to include the value of the offer ("Free UK standard delivery worth £4.99") in the headline, marked with an asterisk to show that terms and conditions applied, and clarification in the main body of the e-mail to say that free delivery related to standard next day delivery.

Interflora said they did not usually offer Sunday delivery, and the volume of orders for Mothering Sunday were always high, which is why the service incurred a premium charge on that day. They said the charge for Mother's Day flowers delivered on the Friday or Saturday was £4.99, which would mean no delivery charge under their offer.

Assessment

Upheld

We noted Interflora's argument that gifts delivered during the Mother's Day period, but not on Mothering Sunday itself, would be delivered free of charge. We nevertheless noted that delivery of gifts for Mother's Day was the subject of the offer and considered most people would expect a free delivery offer for Mother's Day gifts and flowers to be delivered on Mother's Day. Because delivery on Mother's Day cost £9.99 and the delivery promotion only covered delivery charges of up to £4.99, we considered that the claim "Free delivery" in conjunction with the prominent reference to Mother's Day was misleading.

The ad breached CAP Code clauses 7.1 (Truthfulness) and 27.4, 34.1a and 32.1 (Promotions).

Action

We told Interflora not to use the claim "Free Delivery" in ads for services that incurred a delivery charge. We advised them to consult the CAP Copy Advice team for help with future promotional mailings.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)