ASA Adjudication on Acorn Entertainment

Ad

A regional press ad, for Acorn Entertainment (Acorn), stated "immediate highly paid job vacancies available within the entertainment & hospitality environment. full/part time ...".

Issue

The complainant thought the ad was misleading, because he responded to it expecting to find work but, after having paid a registration fee of £80, was told no jobs were available in his area.

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

Acorn did not respond to the ASA's enquiries.

Assessment

Upheld

The ASA was concerned by Acorn's lack of response and apparent disregard for the Code, which was a breach of CAP Code clause 2.6 (Non-response).  We reminded them of their responsibility to respond promptly to our enquiries and told them to do so in future.

We considered the ad misleadingly implied Acorn was an employer recruiting directly to fill existing vacancies, whereas we understood from the information provided by the complainant that Acorn was an agency.  We also considered the ad was misleading for not stating the company's full name or making clear that a registration fee applied.

The ad breached CAP Code clauses 2.6 (Non-response), 7.1 and 7.2 (Truthfulness) and 52.1, 52.2 and 52.3 (Employment and business opportunities).

Action

The ad must not appear again in its current form.  We told Acorn that future ads should make clear that it was an agency, state their full company name, not imply there were vacancies if there were none and state that a registration fee applied.  We asked CAP to inform its members of the problem with Acorn.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)