Ad description
A banner ad for a sports equipment retailer, which appeared on www.independent.co.uk, stated, "Speedo Event Wetsuit Mens £60".
Issue
The complainant, who had attempted to buy the wetsuit, and found that the cost was £125.98, challenged whether the price claim was misleading and could be substantiated.
Response
Newitt & Co Ltd said the price was taken from their selling prices via a Google feed, and if the price showed as £60 then that would have been correct. They said if there was currently no stock at £60, that would not be reflected in the ad until Google's next automated update, which occurred every 30 minutes.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA noted that advertisers were required to hold documentary evidence to prove claims that consumers were likely to regard as objective. We noted that Newitt & Co had failed to provide evidence to substantiate the claim that the product was available at £60.
We noted that, when the complainant 'clicked through' on the ad, they were taken to a page on the advertiser's website, which stated that wetsuits were "from £60". The complainant had attempted to purchase a large wetsuit, and found that the cost of the item was £125.98. We considered that consumers would expect ads to reflect accurately the price at which the product was available, and that they would assume that all sizes of the product were the same price in the absence of a qualification that the prices were "from" a certain amount.
Because Newitt & Co Ltd did not provide evidence to support the claim that the advertised product was on sale at the price stated in the ad, we considered that the claim had not been substantiated and 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.
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),
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
3.17
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).
Action
The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told Newitt & Co Ltd not to make similar price claims in future unless they were able to provide documentary evidence that the advertised product was on sale at the stated price, and to ensure that prices were clearly qualified where they differed depending on the characteristics of the product.
