ASA Adjudication on Moneysupermarket.com Group plc

Ad

A sponsored search result, for an insurance comparison site, stated "Cheapest Car Insurance … 97.57% of consumers achieve savings with MoneySupermarket Car Insurance".

Issue

Gocompare.com challenged whether MoneySupermarket.com could substantiate the claim that 97.57% of consumers achieved savings with their service.

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

Moneysupermarket.com Group plc (Moneysupermarket) said the claim was based on independent research carried out on their behalf to monitor the savings they offered against competitors in the market.  They sent a copy of the research, along with comments on the complaint, by the research company, Consumer Intelligence.  Consumer intelligence said they specialised in carrying out market research in several general insurance sectors, including motor insurance, and had a broad range of often competing clients.  They maintained that their methodologies complied with the relevant Financial Services Authority and ASA guidelines in relation to the data they produced to support their client's advertising claims.

Consumer Intelligence said the Moneysupermarket research was carried out between 1 July 2008 and 31 July 2008 using data from 1953 consumer risk profiles against the quotations offered by 44 companies with 71,783 price quotations in total.  The risk profiles were established through monthly market research, questioning over 2,000 consumers to maintain a representative picture of the car insurance market.  Consumer Intelligence said they used statistical methods to determine the level of savings found for any given percentage number of the sample and therefore allow their clients to make various savings claims.

Consumer Intelligence maintained that their research was fair because it was independent and used standard statistical techniques to ensure that the sample was balanced and representative of the market.  For example, they excluded many claims on the extremes to avoid inflating savings claims.  Consumer Intelligence added that their methodology had the advantage of being neutral, as opposed to data drawn from particular provider or comparison websites customer records.  They maintained that their use of a virtual market allowed their research to avoid the potential for distortions, in particular, the prevalence of consumers neglecting to switch if savings were below around £30.

Assessment

Not upheld

The ASA noted the claim stated that "97.57% of consumers achieve savings" with Moneysupermarket.   We noted the sponsored link did not indicate the level of those savings and we considered that consumers were likely to understand merely that the vast majority of consumers could make savings if they used the Moneysupermarket website.   We noted an independent market research company had obtained a lowest price on Moneysupermarket's website for each profile.  They then compared that with prices that they obtained on providers' own websites using the same profile.  Although we noted the claim was not based on actual Moneysupermarket customer data, we considered that Consumer Intelligence had taken reasonable methodological steps to ensure the representativeness of their survey in relation to the market.  Because Moneysupermarket had provided reasonable evidence to demonstrate the accuracy of their claim, we concluded that the ad was unlikely to mislead.

We investigated the ad under CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation), 7.1 (Truthfulness) and 19.1 (Other comparisons) but did not find it in breach.

Action

No further action necessary.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)