ASA Adjudication on DSG Retail Ltd

Ad

A national press ad, for PC World, featured different laptops and PCs. The bottom right of the page showed an Advent laptop. Text read "CORE 2 DUO TWICE AS FAST ... Intel Centrino Duo Mobile Technology with Core 2 Duo Processor ...". The text was linked to a footnote that read "Based on multi-tasking bench-marking against previous generation Centrino. See www.intel.com for details ... ".

Issue

The complainant challenged whether the claim " ... TWICE AS FAST" misleadingly implied that the Core 2 Duo would always be twice as fast as a single core processor; he understood that, because of shared hardware components, the Core 2 Duo would be no more than 1.7 times faster than a single core processor.

CAP Code

Response

PC World said the laptop advertised used Intel Core 2 Duo and Centrino technology. They pointed out that the text "twice as fast" was linked to a footnote that explained that the claim was based on benchmarking against the performance of previous generation Intel Centrino technology and readers could learn more by visiting the Intel website. They said they therefore disagreed with the complainant's assertion that the ad implied Core 2 Duo technology would always be twice as fast as a single core processor because it was not being compared with a single core processor. PC World said the claim "twice as fast" originated from Intel itself and sent the ASA a sample of the benchmarking data. They argued that it was reasonable to compare the performance of the current technology against that of the product's well known and highly regarded immediate predecessor. PC World said they were not currently using the claim but would like to do so in future.

Assessment

Not upheld

The ASA noted the claim "twice as fast" was linked to a footnote that made clear that it referred to the performance of the Core 2 Duo technology against previous generation Centrino technology. We also noted Intel, through a recognised industry benchmarking system, had concluded that the Core 2 Duo was twice as fast as its immediate predecessor. We acknowledged that the ad made clear the basis for the "twice as fast" claim and where readers could find out more information about that. We concluded that the ad was unlikely to mislead.

We investigated the ad under CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation), 7.1 (Truthfulness), 18.1, 18.3 (Fair comparison) and 19.1 (Fair comparison) but did not find it in breach.

Action

No further action necessary.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)