Ad description
Claims on the Michael Ireland website, for a commercial photographer, viewed in June 2011. Text on the Links page stated “... www.swpp.co.uk (member) ...”.
Issue
The Society of Wedding and Portrait Photographers (SWPP) objected that the ad was misleading because Michael Ireland was not a member of SWPP.
Response
Michael Ireland did not respond to the ASA's enquiries.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA was concerned by Michael Ireland's lack of response and apparent disregard for the Code, which was a breach of CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 1.7 (Unreasonable delay). We reminded them of their responsibility to respond promptly to our enquiries and told them to do so in future.
Michael Ireland did not supply any evidence to demonstrate that he was a member of SWPP. We concluded that the ad misleadingly implied that Michael Ireland was a member of SWPP.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 1.7 (Unreasonable delay), 3.1 3.1 Marketing communications must not materially mislead or be likely to do so. (Misleading advertising), 3.7 3.7 Before distributing or submitting a marketing communication for publication, marketers must hold documentary evidence to prove claims that consumers are likely to regard as objective and that are capable of objective substantiation. The ASA may regard claims as misleading in the absence of adequate substantiation. (Substantiation), and 3.50 3.50 Marketing communications must not display a trust mark, quality mark or equivalent without the necessary authorisation. Marketing communications must not claim that the marketer (or any other entity referred to), the marketing communication or the advertised product has been approved, endorsed or authorised by any public or other body if it has not or without complying with the terms of the approval, endorsement or authorisation. (Endorsements and Testimonials).
Action
The ad must not appear again in its current form. We referred the matter to CAP’s Compliance team. We told Michael Ireland to ensure that in all future ads he did not imply that he held membership of a society when that was not the case.
