Background

 Summary of Council decision:

Two issues were investigated, both were Upheld.

Ad description

An ad seen in a local business directory stated "FAST RESPONSE ... Family Run Business Est 35 years ... Local Engineers Covering Your Area".  The ad then stated "CALL US NOW" and listed several towns followed by local telephone numbers.

Issue

The complainant challenged whether:

1.  the claim "Family Run Business Est 35 years" was misleading and could be substantiated; and

2.  the phone numbers misleadingly implied that the advertiser had a local office in each of the towns.

Response

1.  1st Active Drainage Ltd (1st Active Drainage) said the business was established by the current owner's father over 35 years ago and was then incorporated as a limited company.  

2.  1st Active Drainage said the claim "Local Engineers Covering Your Area" was factually correct as they had engineers in each locality.

Assessment

1.  Upheld

The ASA considered the claim "Family Run Business Est 35 years" would be interpreted as continual trading by the same family, which should be supported with documentary evidence.  Because we had not seen evidence that demonstrated a period of continuous trade by the same family, we concluded 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.  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).

2.  Upheld

We considered that consumers would infer from the local phone numbers that 1st Active Drainage had offices or engineers specifically located in each of the stated towns. Because we had not received any evidence demonstrating that was the case, we concluded that the claim had not been substantiated and 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.  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).

Action

The ad must not appear again in its current form.  We told 1st Active Drainage to remove the claim "Family Run Business Est 35 years" from their advertising and not imply they had local offices where they did not.

CAP Code (Edition 12)

3.1     3.3     3.7    


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