ASA Adjudication on Designercrete

Ad

An ad in the Yellow Pages directory stated "HIGH QUALITY PATTERN IMPRINTED CONCRETE, DESIGNERCRETE. Drives-Patios-Paths ..." and was illustrated with two photographs of patios.

Issue

JK Landscapes complained that the ad was misleading because one of the photographs was of a driveway they had installed.

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

Designercrete did not respond to our enquiries.

Assessment

Upheld

The ASA was concerned by Designercretes 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 obligations under the Code and told them to respond promptly in future.

Because we had not seen evidence to show that the photographs in the ad represented work carried out by Designercrete we concluded the ad was likely to mislead.

The ad breached CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation) and 7.1 (Misleading advertising).

Action

The ad must not appear again in its current form. We asked CAP to inform its members of the problem with Designercrete.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)