ASA Adjudication on Ashtons Estate Agents Ltd

Ad

A regional press ad, for Ashtons Estate Agents, stated "When the market becomes a little more difficult ... why does Ashtons go straight to the top of the league table?". The ad included a pie chart and text that stated "ashtons 36% of sold boards*". The asterisk linked to smaller text that stated "*In a board count carried out 26th February 2008 Ashtons not only had 36% of the sold boards in Harpenden, but also had more than the next two agents put together and what's more, was the only estate agent to have more SOLD boards than FOR-SALE boards."

Issue

1. John Curtis Ltd challenged whether the claim "ashtons 36% of sold boards" was misleading because they understood a similar analysis carried out less than two weeks earlier produced very different results.

2. The ASA challenged whether the ad misleadingly made an implied market leadership claim on the basis of "sold" board analysis.

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

1. Ashtons Estate Agents (Ashtons) explained that they carried out their own board counts, rather than appointing an independent supplier of sold board reports, so that they could retain control over the data and publish it as they saw fit.  They said the survey quoted by John Curtis had been carried out by an independent supplier of sold board reports several weeks prior to their survey and it was therefore inevitable that the number of boards would be different as properties came onto the market and sales were agreed and completed.  They pointed out that the ad made clear when the board count was carried out and made no claim that the survey was independent.

Ashtons sent the ASA a spreadsheet showing the address of each property, the name of the instructed agent and the status listed on the board.  69 boards were counted, of which 24 were Ashtons.  They also sent three pie charts titled "Harpenden Sold Boards", "Harpenden Market For Sale Boards" and "Total Boards".  The "Harpenden Sold Boards" pie chart listed ten agents and showed that the Ashtons segment, which was the largest, amounted to 36% of sold boards. The next two largest segments represented 17% and 14% of sold boards.

2. Ashtons said the ad was intended to highlight that a change in the market resulted in a change in the league table of board-count positions and the reference to going to "the top of the league table" was intended to mean the top of the league table of sold boards.  They believed most readers would also interpret the claim in that way.  Ashtons agreed that the number of sold boards did not necessarily equate to the most sales but argued that it was indicative of a high level of success in the market place.

Assessment

1. Upheld

The ASA noted the survey to which John Curtis referred had been carried out by an independent supplier of sold board reports on 15 February.  John Curtis supplied us with a copy of that report.  It showed a total count of 63 sold boards, of which John Curtis had the greatest number, 14 (22%) and Ashtons had the second greatest number 13 (21%).  We noted Ashtons had carried out their own board count on 26 February.  We noted Ashtons' survey counted 69 sold boards, of which Ashtons had the greatest number, 24 (35% and not 36% as claimed in the ad), and John Curtis had the second greatest number, 12 (17%).  We recognised that the number of sold boards per agent could vary from one week to the next and noted the ad did not claim that the board count had been carried out independently.  We nevertheless considered that the figures needed to be independently verifiable to ensure that the survey gave a fair picture of the number of sold boards in the area at that time.  Because Ashtons' survey was not independently verifiable, we concluded that the figures may have been incorrect and that the comparison in the ad may have been misleading.

On this point, the ad breached CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation), 7.1 (Truthfulness) and 19.1 (Comparisons).

2. Upheld  

We considered that readers were likely to infer, especially from the pie chart and the claim "... why does Ashtons go straight to the top of the league table?", that the estate agent with the most sold boards was the market leader.  We considered that, as not every estate agent was guaranteed to put a board outside a property and as boards could be unscrupulously placed by agents, counting sold board presence was an inadequate method of substantiating a claim about market leadership.  We therefore concluded that the ad could mislead.

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

Action

The ad must not appear again in its current form.  We told Ashtons to include a disclaimer in future ads to make clear that the quantity of sold boards did not necessarily equate to the number of completions and to ensure that any figures they quoted in their ads were independently verifiable.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)