ASA Non-broadcast Adjudication: Envenio Ltd

Complaint

Obection to a mailing for a talent agency. It stated "Thanks to us two people have won a contract with Storm Model Management ... envenio is a password protected website, recognised by the government ... We've been in business many years". The mailing included 12 testimonials, one of which stated "Last week I was a van driver, now I'm presenting a new live TV show on Challenge TV" and a letter which stated "DRAFT FOREWORD FOR ENVENIO (formerly e-media-c) ... It is a pleasure to provide a foreword for envenio ... Incentives such as envenio provide an excellent showcasing resource ... I wish all those at envenio every success. DR KIM HOWELLS Minister for Tourism, Film and Broadcasting". The complainants challenged:

1. the claim "Thanks to us two people have won a contract with Storm Model Management";

2. the veracity of the testimonials;

3. the claims "envenio ... recognised by government" and the veracity of the letter from Kim Howells because Dr Howells had ceased to be the Minister for Tourism, Film and Broadcasting before envenio was founded in 2004 and

4. the claim "We've been in business many years".

CAP Code

Adjudication

1. Complaint not upheld

Envenio sent a copy of an e-mail from a director of Storm Model management that confirmed that the two winners of a competition organised by envenio had been offered contracts by his firm. Envenio sent a copy of their contract with Storm Model management that confirmed that.

We considered that envenio had substantiated the claim and did not object.

2. Complaint upheld

Envenio said e-media-c Ltd had adopted the trading name envenio on 18 August 2004. They said e-media-c ltd trading as envenio ltd went into administrative receivership on 9 September 2004. Envenio said they purchased certain assets from e-media-c including the fixed assets, book debts, the business and goodwill, which included the customers and clients of the business and related obligations as well as certain obligations such as the employment commitments under TUPE to all staff and lease obligations on their business premises. They said the purchase included the trading names "e-media-c" and "envenio". Envenio said e-media-c's customers had paid their subscriptions in advance to be listed on the company's website. They said all of e-media-c's customers were transferred to envenio and that the services which they had paid e-media-c for had been provided by envenio. Envenio said 8 of the testimonials used in the mailing were for e-media-c but that all of the testimonial writers were now customers of envenio and that envenio had provided all services that the testimonial writers had paid e-media-c for. They said that, because all of the testimonial writers were now clients of envenio and because they would receive all the services they had paid e-media-c for from envenio, the use of the testimonials was not misleading.

We noted envenio's comments and the history of the company. We noted that eight of the testimontials had been given to e-media-c and that all the testimonials had been given to either e-media-c or envenio. We noted that envenio had not paid off all of the debts of the previous company, e-media-c ltd. We considered that the use of the testimonials given to e-media-c rather than envenio was therefore misleading and told envenio to remove them from their marketing material.

3. Complaint upheld

Envenio said the letter from DR KIM HOWELLS had been sent to e-media-c and that, because they had bought e-media-c when it was in recievership, they were entitled to use the letter and the claim "envenio ... recognised by the government".

We noted that, although e-media-c had been praised by Dr Howells when he was Minister for Tourism, Film and Broadcasting, they had not been officially endorsed by the government. We considered that, because readers would understand the claim "recognised by the government" to mean that the firm was officially endorsed by the government when that was not the case, the claim was misleading. We noted that the letter stated "DRAFT FOREWORD FOR ENVENIO (formerly e-media-c)", and considered that readers would therefore assume that Dr Howells' letter was written to envenio rather than e-media-c. We noted that Dr Howells was no longer the Minister for Tourism, Film and Broadcasting when e-media-c began using the name envenio in 2004. We considered that, because the letter implied that Dr Howells had written to envenio rather than e-media-c, it was misleading. We told the advertisers to remove the letter from their advertising material.

4. Complaint upheld

Envenio said the claim "We have been in business for many years" referred to employees of envenio who had been in the industry for many years.

We noted that the claim did not make clear whether it referred to envenio or employees of envenio. We considered that, because the claim appeared in a paragraph that referred to envenio rather than the employees of the company, readers would understand the claim to mean that envenio had been trading for many years. We noted that e-media-c started trading in 2000, that envenio was incorporated on 12 September 2004 and that envenio had bought e-media-c from the liquidator on 29 October 2004. We noted that envenio had not paid off all of the debts of the previous company, e-media-c ltd. We considered that the claim "we have been in business many years" was therefore misleading and told envenio to remove the claim from their marketing material.

We considered that the advertisers had breached Clause 3.1 (Substantiation), 7.1 (Truthfullness) and 14.2 (Testimonials and endorsements).