ASA Adjudication on Associated Newspapers Ltd

Ad

A promotion in the Daily Mail, for an MP4 player, stated “FREE WITH The Mail ON SUNDAY … MP4 VIDEO PLAYER … Get YOUR MP4 video player FREE with tomorrow’s The Mail ON SUNDAY”. Smallprint next to an image of the MP4 player stated “TOKEN COLLECT AND *P&P APPLIES”.

Issue

The complainant objected that the ad was misleading, because it implied that the MP4 would be free with the Mail on Sunday when it was, in fact, a token collect promotion.

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

The Daily Mail said all their pre-promotion material and ads for the offer stated clearly that it was a token collect promotion. They pointed out that the ad stated "TOKEN COLLECT AND *P&P APPLIES".

Assessment

Upheld

The ASA noted the ad featured a small disclaimer, "TOKEN COLLECT AND *P&P APPLIES".  We also noted, however, that the body of the text stated prominently "Get YOUR MP4 video player FREE with tomorrows The Mail ON SUNDAY", which, we considered, was likely to lead consumers to expect that the MP4 Player was available in the Mail on Sunday.  Because the qualifying disclaimer was of very low prominence and because it contradicted the claims in the body copy, we concluded that the ad was likely to mislead.

The ad breached CAP Code clauses 7.1 (Truthfulness) and 27.4 (Sales Promotion Rules).

Action

The ad must not appear again in its current form.

We told the Daily Mail to ensure future similar promotions made prominently clear that readers were required to collect tokens to respond to the offer.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)