Ad description
The website www.scottishpower.co.uk promoted Scottish Power Connect Remote Heating Control and included the claim "Save up to 20% off your gas heating". Text at the bottom of the page stated "*This figure is based on a trial of 70 homes that remotely accessed their hub at least once a week and found they were using their heating 20% less of the time compared to others. The calculation assumes 55% of a dual fuel bill is from gas charges. The calculation excludes standing charges (assumed 15% of bill) and non-heating gas use (assumed 17% of bill) when estimating savings from Connect".
Issue
One complainant challenged whether the claim "Save up to 20% off your gas heating" was misleading and could be substantiated.
Response
ScottishPower Energy Retail Ltd said the claim was substantiated by a survey conducted by a third party between October and December 2011, involving 70 staff and customer homes. They said 60% of the trial participants who engaged remotely with the product, on average, more than once per week had their boilers on for an average of 21% less time than those who, on average, engaged less than once a week. ScottishPower Energy Retail Ltd said they had amended the headline claim and qualification to make it clearer that the data showed that a user could reduce their gas heating usage by up to 20% by using the product, and that the claim was based on a sample of 70 homes. They also provided a copy of the trial data.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA noted that the headline claim stated "Save up to 20% off your gas heating" and considered consumers would understand that if they bought and used the product, which allowed them to adjust their heating and hot water remotely, they could reduce their energy usage and, as a result, save up to 20% off their gas heating bills. We also noted that the web page included small print at the bottom of the page which explained how that saving had been calculated, but that that text was not linked to the headline claim, and considered that it could be easily overlooked by readers. For those who located the text, we considered they were likely to believe that all 70 individuals included in the trial used the product more than once a week during the trial period and that their usage had dropped by 20% in comparison to "others". While there was no indication of who those "others" were, we considered readers would assume they were customers who did not have access to the product.
We noted that ScottishPower Energy Retail Ltd believed that the evidence provided showed that those who had used the product, on average, once a week or more, reduced their energy usage by 21% in comparison to those who had used it, on average, less than once a week. While we acknowledged that a reduction in usage was likely to result in a reduction in a user's gas bill, we noted ScottishPower Energy Retail Ltd had not provided any evidence to show the amount that the participants' gas bills had reduced by in the trial, or that any participants had achieved a saving of 20%.
We reviewed the trial data supplied and understood that of the 70 participants included in the trial, 39 accessed their hub remotely, on average, once or more a week, while 31 accessed it remotely, on average, less than once a week, and the difference between both groups' average usage was 21%. We considered that that comparison was problematic, however, as the trial did not adequately control for other factors that could influence a participant's energy usage. For example, there was no consideration of the circumstances of each participant, such as the number of people living in their home, or the size, age and design of their home (e.g. terraced or detached), which could all impact on their typical level of consumption. We were concerned that, in the absence of any information regarding the participants' energy usage prior to having the product installed, the trial did not prove that the participants' usage had been influenced by their use of the product and differed from their usual consumption. Therefore, we considered that the trial did not demonstrate that there was a causal relationship between a customer's engagement with the product and their energy usage.
For those reasons, we considered that the evidence provided was not sufficient to substantiate the claim that the product could result in a reduction in energy usage or a corresponding reduction in a user's gas bill, and concluded that the claim 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. (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 3.11 3.11 Marketing communications must not mislead consumers by exaggerating the capability or performance of a product. (Exaggeration).
Action
The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told ScottishPower Energy Retail Ltd to ensure they held sufficient evidence to substantiate their objective marketing claims and that their claims were adequately qualified, in future.
