ASA Adjudication on Rapid Response Solicitors

Ad

A regional press ad for a firm of solicitors stated "Accident? We'll win big for you! Rapid SOLICITORS".

Issue

The complainant challenged whether the ad misleadingly implied that anyone who had had an accident would win compensation, regardless of the nature of their accident and the validity of their claim.

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

Rapid Response Solicitors (Rapid Response) said the ad was designed to highlight the fact that not all lawyers would secure the same amount of compensation for clients. As a specialist firm, they believed they did win big for their clients compared with non-specialist or small personal injury firms. Rapid Response said they thought consumers would understand that the claim in the ad applied only if they won a case, and they explained that they did not encourage claims from clients that they did not think were valid.

Rapid Response said they had withdrawn the ad with immediate effect and provided correspondence from the publisher to confirm that that action had been taken.

Assessment

Upheld

The ASA welcomed the fact that Rapid Response had withdrawn the ad as soon as they were notified of the complaint. However, we considered that the claim "We'll win big for you!" was an absolute claim that could be understood by some consumers to mean that they would win compensation regardless of the nature of their accident or validity of their claim. Because we understood that that was not the case we concluded that the ad was misleading.

The ad breached CAP Code clauses 3.1 and 3.4 (Substantiation) and 7.1 (Truthfulness).

Action

We welcomed Rapid Response's assurance that the ad would not appear again in its current form.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)