Ad description
A website for a letting agent, seen on www.belvoirlettings.com on 21 February 2012, provided information about their Chelmsford branch and featured various award logos which stated "Multi Award Winning Lettings Agency", "The Negotiator Awards 2012 Finalist" and "Landlord & Letting Awards Finalist 2010".
Issue
cmRENT challenged whether the logos misleadingly implied that the awards had been won by the Chelmsford branch.
Response
Belvoir Property Management (UK) Ltd (Belvoir Property Management), who responded on behalf of Belvoir Chelmsford, said they were a franchise network that operated under the national brand, Belvoir Lettings. They said all franchise owners signed an agreement which gave the license holder the contractual and lawful right to use the Belvoir Lettings trading name, logo, icon, national branding and all related marketing material. They said their network as a whole had been awarded for their combined achievements, which included Belvoir Chelmsford, who had financially contributed to the cost of each of the awards. They said they always obtained permission to use logos and submitted various emails from the event organisers and Trading Standards, which confirmed they could use the award logos.
Assessment
Not upheld
The ASA noted Belvoir Chelmsford was a franchise of Belvoir Lettings and that the award logos were featured on the franchise home page for the Chelmsford branch on the Belvoir Lettings website. We also noted the e-mails submitted indicated that Belvoir Lettings were permitted to use the award logos and that Belvoir Property Management said all franchise holders had the right to use marketing material that related to Belvoir Lettings. We noted the franchise home page for the Chelmsford branch made various references to "franchise" and directed readers to other branches of the Belvoir Letting franchise. We also noted the awards did not refer to the Chelmsford branch and that one award referred to the "Letting Agency Franchise Letting Agency of the Year 2010". We considered that, in that context, readers were likely to infer that the award logos related to the whole franchise network, and not merely to the specific Chelmsford branch, and therefore concluded that they were not misleading.
We investigated the ad under CAP Code (Edition 12) rules
3.1
3.1
Marketing communications must not materially mislead or be likely to do so.
and
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) but did not find it in breach.
Action
No further action necessary.
