ASA Adjudication on Ecotek UK Ltd

Ad

A TV ad for a device designed to reduce the power electrical appliances used on standby. The voice-over stated "The Standby Saver is an award winning product that intelligently reduces standby power to zero".

Issue

A viewer complained that the ad was misleading, because he bought one of the devices and said it used more electricity when on standby than an appliance on standby.  He believed that the claim that the device reduced standby power use to zero could not be substantiated.

BCAP TV Code

Response

Ecotek UK Ltd (Ecotek) said the Standby Saver device ensured that any electrical appliance plugged in to it would have its standby power use reduced to zero when the device was activated.  They believed that was self evident because the Standby Saver acted to completely disconnect the power to the controlled sockets, isolating them from the household mains ring. Ecotek acknowledged that the device itself, when on standby, consumed a small amount of electricity. They asserted, however, that it amounted to less than one watt and sent evidence of independent testing showing the figure to be 0.74 W. The said the actual standby power that a user saved depended on the total standby power consumption of each device plugged into the standby saver strip, but pointed out that it was not uncommon to find a household plug load for television and audio equipment of between 16 W and 20 W. Ecotek stressed that, although the Standby Saver device did itself consume a small amount of power, the standby power of the connected devices was reduced to zero as stated in the ad.

Clearcast said they had received Ecotek's assurance that the Standby Saver device reduced the standby power of appliances plugged into it to zero. They said they were provided with evidence which demonstrated that the device when on standby did use a small amount of power but believed that the claim was not misleading on the basis of the evidence they had seen.

Assessment

Not upheld

The ASA noted the evidence sent by Ecotek showed the device reduced the amount of standby power consumed by appliances attached to it to zero, in line with the claim in the ad. We understood, however, that, because the device itself was connected to the electricity mains, it consumed a small amount of power.

Although we noted the complainant asserted that the power the Standby Saver used when on standby was greater than some appliances consumed on standby, we noted Ecotek had demonstrated through independent testing that the amount was only 0.74 W. We understood that the amount of standby power used by normal household appliances on standby would be significantly higher than that figure. We considered that viewers would appreciate that in order for the Standby Saver device to operate, it would have to be plugged into mains electricity and would therefore consume some power. However, we considered that they were also likely to believe that the amount used by the device would not be significant; we considered that Ecotek had shown that to be the case

Because Ecotek had demonstrated that their device reduced standby power to zero and because we considered that the fact their device used a small amount of power itself was not a significant condition, we concluded that the ad was unlikely to mislead.

We investigated the ad under CAP (Broadcast) Advertising Standards Code rules 5.1.1 (Misleading advertising) and 5.2.1 (Evidence) but did not find it in breach.

Action

No further action necessary.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Broadcast)