Ad description
A Facebook page, a Facebook post and claims on a website for a mobile phone provider in Jersey and Guernsey:
a. The Facebook page featured text that stated "Avoid shocking call charges! Save OVER 50% versus Sure".
b. The Facebook post featured text that stated "Are you Sure you have the best deal on PAYG? Sure mobile now charge 20p per minute to Channel Island mobiles and UK landlines. Isn't it time you switched and saved? See how much you could save …".
c. The website www.airtel-vodafone.com featured a comparison table of Airtel-Vodafone, Sure and one other competitor's call rates. Text stated "Switch from Sure and pay less than half the price to call local mobiles and UK landlines". The ad also displayed a table of the top-up bundles available.
Issue
Sure Jersey Ltd/Sure Guernsey Ltd challenged whether the comparisons and savings claims in the ads were misleading and could be substantiated, because they omitted information about Sure's top-up bundles, which in many cases, meant that consumers would pay less overall.
Response
Jersey Airtel Ltd said the ads clearly stated that they were comparing call charge rates and not bundles. They explained that they also offered a top-up bundle that was comparable with Sure's. They provided copies of Sure's and their pay as you go (PAYG) call rates and top-up bundles, which they said substantiated their claims. The top-up bundles for each provider had different restrictions and terms. They said that once consumers had used up any free minutes, they would be charged these standard rates and they believed that many customers would therefore make significant savings.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA understood that while many consumers were likely to make use of top-up bundles, the ads intended to compare per-minute call charge rates only, which Airtel-Vodafone believed was comparing like for like. We considered whether consumers were likely to interpret each of the ads as claiming that they would save money with Airtel-Vodafone rather than Sure generally or whether it was sufficiently clear that they were comparing a specific part of their package, the per-minute call charge rates, exclusively.
We considered that the ads did not distinguish clearly that the comparisons referred specifically to per-minute call rates, and we considered that consumers would likely regard the references to call charges as to the overall costs, rather than the rates for minutes outside the bundles.
We noted that ad (a) contained the claim "Save OVER 50% versus Sure" and while it was preceded by a reference to call charges, we considered that consumers would be likely to interpret the claim as a general comparison between the overall charges of the two providers. We understood that due to the variations in top-up bundles offered by the providers, Airtel-Vodafone could not guarantee these savings when factoring in the bundles offered by each.
We noted that ad (b) contained the claim "Are you Sure you have the best deal on PAYG?" and while the ad referred to a call charge per minute and contained links to a website that compared call charges, we considered that the ad did not make sufficiently clear that the comparison related to the per-minute call charge rates alone and savings may be affected when factoring in top-up bundles.
Regarding ad (c), we noted that the claim "Switch from Sure and pay less than half the price to call local mobiles and UK landlines" was accompanied by a table that clearly compared per-minute call charge rates. However, we considered that consumers would likely understand from the claim that by switching from Sure to Airtel-Vodafone, they would pay significantly less overall to call local mobiles and UK landlines, and we understood that this would not necessarily be the case if the consumer used a top-up bundle without exceeding its limitations.
We concluded that claims in each of the ads were likely to be interpreted as general comparative claims and, as the ads did not make sufficiently clear that only one part of the providers' service was being compared, the ads were misleading.
The ads 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),
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),
3.17
3.17
Price statements must not mislead by omission, undue emphasis or distortion. They must relate to the product featured in the marketing communication.
(Prices),
3.33
3.33
Marketing communications that include a comparison with an identifiable competitor must not mislead, or be likely to mislead, the consumer about either the advertised product or the competing product.
(Comparisons with identifiable competitors) and
3.39
3.39
Marketing communications that include a price comparison must make the basis of the comparison clear.
CAP has published a Help Note on Retailers' Price Comparisons and a Help Note on Lowest Price Claims and Price Promises.
(Price comparisons).
Action
The ads must not appear again in their current form. We told Jersey Airtel Ltd to ensure that they did not make general comparative savings claims based only on a comparison of a specific part of their package.
