Ad description

A website for beauty services www.sisabeautyclinic.co.uk included a page entitled "Laser Hair Removal" where text stated "Our Ellipse hair removal treatment offers clinically-proven, safe and effective long-term removal of unwanted hair .... Well controlled pulses of light penetrate the upper skin layer ... the visible light produced by the Ellipse Flex and Ellipse Light systems are carefully controlled".   

Issue

The complainant challenged whether the claim "Laser Hair Removal" was misleading because he understood the service being offered was Intense Pulsed Light (IPL).

Response

Sisa Beauty Clinic (Sisa) did not respond to the ASA's enquiries.

Assessment

Upheld

The ASA was concerned by Sisa's lack of response and apparent disregard for the Code, which was a breach of CAP Code (Edition 12) rule  1.7 1.7 Any unreasonable delay in responding to the ASA's enquiries will normally be considered a breach of the Code.  (Unreasonable delay). We reminded them of their responsibility to respond promptly to our enquiries and told them to do so in future.

Because Sisa had not provided evidence to demonstrate that term "Laser Hair Removal" had been accurately used in relation to the product we concluded that the ad was misleading.

The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules  3.1 3.1 Marketing communications must not materially mislead or be likely to do so.    3.3 3.3 Marketing communications must not mislead the consumer by omitting material information. They must not mislead by hiding material information or presenting it in an unclear, unintelligible, ambiguous or untimely manner.
Material information is information that the consumer needs to make informed decisions in relation to a product. Whether the omission or presentation of material information is likely to mislead the consumer depends on the context, the medium and, if the medium of the marketing communication is constrained by time or space, the measures that the marketer takes to make that information available to the consumer by other means.
 (Misleading advertising) and  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).

Action

The ad must not appear again in its current form.  We referred the matter to the CAP Compliance team.

CAP Code (Edition 12)

1.7     3.1     3.3     3.7    


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