ASA Adjudication on BAA plc

Ad

A leaflet produced by BAA, entitled "Guide to Stansted Airport", stated " … The price of all food and drink sold in BAA airports is matched with the UK high street, so you won't pay a penny more than you're used to." The leaflet listed airport food and drink outlets. A second leaflet, entitled "Taste", stated " … Don't forget, our caterers are committed to matching the price of all the food and drink they sell within their airport stores against their high street equivalents. So get stuck in as you won't pay a penny more than you're used to! …".

Issue

The complainant objected that the leaflets were misleading because airport food and drink outlets, in particular WH Smith and JD Wetherspoon, charged significantly higher prices than their high street equivalents.

CAP Code

Response

BAA said they had a contract with all their food and beverage "eat in" retailers, including JD Wetherspoon, that demanded price parity with the high street. They explained that prices at each airport were compared with the local high street, or, in cases where the retailer did not have a branch on that high street, with the nearest outlet. BAA said WH Smith was contractually obliged to benchmark its prices on all non price marked products, including food and drink, against the local high street. Prices at Stansted, for example, were compared with Cambridge. They also said they carried out spot checks on all retailers to ensure their pricing matched the claim.

BAA said spot checks were carried out monthly by an independent agency and the results were reported back to the BAA Retail Board, via the customer insight team, and also to the category teams who managed the relationship with the retailers. They sent a list that specified the high street benchmarks used to price check retailers in each of their airports. They also sent conformance statistics for the period April 2006 to March 2007 that detailed the outlets they checked and the number of products that did not conform to the policy. BAA supplied details of their resolution and escalation processes for retailers who did not comply with the policy, and a list of non-conforming product lines at WHSmith and JD Wetherspoon outlets in 2006 and 2007. They added that they were currently part way through implementing an improved pricing contract with WHSmith branches across their terminals, that would create a lower pricing structure for customers.

Assessment

Upheld

The ASA noted BAA had a contract with catering outlets and branches of WH Smith in their airports that obliged those retailers to match their prices against the local high street or against the nearest branch. We also noted they carried out spot checks to ensure that retailers were meeting their contractual obligations, and that they had written procedures to ensure compliance with the policy. We also, noted, however, the list of high street benchmark locations provided by BAA for catering and retail outlets in their airports. WH Smith stores in Gatwick, Heathrow and Stansted airports were obliged to match their prices with five WH Smith branches in Central London: Holborn, Leadenhall, Oxford Street Plaza, Fleet Street and Baker Street. The Stansted store had an additional benchmark of a WH Smith store in Central Cambridge. JD Wetherspoon pubs in Gatwick, Heathrow and Stansted were obliged to match the average of the price charged at three of their premises in the City of London. We contacted JD Wetherspoon who confirmed that their pubs in the City of London charged higher prices than regional outlets. We also contacted WH Smith who said food, drink and confectionary items were likely to be at a higher price at their Central London outlets than at regional branches.

We considered that customers would see the claims "matched with the UK high street, so you won't pay a penny more than you're used to" and "committed to matching ... their high street equivalents" as a reference to prices on their local high street or high streets near to the airports. Because the leaflets did not make clear that some major airport food outlets matched their prices with their Central London branches, which charged more than regional branches, we concluded the claims were misleading.

The ads breached CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation), 7.1 (Truthfulness) and 19.1 (Other comparisons).

Action

We told BAA not to use the claim in future advertising.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)