ASA Adjudication on Ideal Shopping Direct plc

Ad

A one-hour ad on a teleshopping channel advertised Calortec ceramic heaters. It was hosted by a female presenter who was joined by a Calortec representative. The presenter made various claims about Calortec’s heating technology, including the environmental benefits of such technology, and its ability to dramatically reduce the cost of domestic heating by storing heat in the ceramic core. These claims were repeated throughout. The ad also featured a number of demonstrations with thermal imaging footage and thermometers demonstrating the Calortec ceramic’s ability to store and emit heat over time.

Issue

The ASA was contacted by four viewers.

1. Three of the viewers challenged whether the claim "With your normal ... electric central heating if you wanted to keep your home at an ambient temperature of 21 degrees ... for 24 hours you would need to have your electric heating on for 17 hours ... with Calortec you need no more than six hours ... that means that you are going to save about two-thirds of your heating money", was misleading and could be substantiated.

2. Three of the viewers challenged whether the demonstrations, which suggested that the ceramic was in some way producing free heat, were misleading, and whether the claims "What you are going to see in this hour from Calortec is ... a way that you can warm a room without energy," and "This is a special brick clay that actually has the power to multiply the heat that it gets. When it gets heat it makes more of it," were misleading and could be substantiated.

3. One of the viewers challenged whether the environmental claims, such as "You are saving the planet. You are making an enormous difference to the energy resources of this planet," were misleading and could be substantiated.

BCAP TV Code

Response

1., 2 & 3. Ideal Shopping Direct plc (Ideal World) said they did not have evidence that supported the claims made about the Calortec ceramic radiators during the presentation, and explained that none of those claims had been approved for use during the show. They provided a copy of their in-house product card, issued to the presenter and production team, which they pointed out specifically stated that the comparative claims that the product would save money and was more efficient than other forms of heating, and that electricity was cheaper and more environmentally friendly than other forms of energy, were not permitted. Ideal World said the presenter had not adhered to those guidelines in this instance.

Ideal World said the claim that using Calortec for six hours was equivalent to using other heating units for 17 hours was based on a laboratory trial, carried out in a 'climatic' room. They provided a copy of a report in French that gave details of the trial but emphasised that that in itself was not a formal test report. Ideal World said their presenter had not appreciated the limited scope and applicability of the trial and had made unjustifiable extrapolations regarding "energy saving", "free energy" and "saving the planet" that should not have been made. They said the supplier was carrying out further lab tests to provide reliable technical data about the efficacy of the product, and that they would not make any technical or comparative claims about the product until they received adequate supporting data.

Ideal World said, once they realised that unsupported claims had been made about the product, they took immediate action to ensure presenters were re-briefed, in order that similar statements would not be made again during a live broadcast.

Assessment

1., 2. & 3. Upheld

The ASA noted that Ideal World did not hold evidence to support the claims made in the ad, and that those claims had been made in breach of the criteria set down on Ideal World's in-house product sheet. We welcomed the steps Ideal World had taken to make sure that such claims would not be made again in relation to the Calortec ceramic heaters. However, we considered that greater care should have been taken to ensure that both the presenters and the production team complied with the product card, and we were concerned that no action had been taken at the time to stop the claims being repeated during the hour-long live presentation. Because of that, and because we had not seen robust evidence that supported the environmental, energy efficiency and monetary savings claims made in the ad, we concluded that it was misleading.

The ad breached CAP (Broadcast) TV Advertising Standards Code rules 5.1.1 and 5.1.3 (Misleading advertising), 5.2.1 (Evidence), 5.2.2 (Implications) and 5.2.6 (Environmental claims).

Action

The ad must not be broadcast again in its current form.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Broadcast)