Ad description
A press ad, for the Brennan JB7 music system, featured text which stated "Small enough to pick up with one hand yet big enough for a lifetime of music, the Brennan JB7 is a CD player with a hard drive that lets you store, browse and play up to 5000 of your CDs". Further text stated "THE AWARS-WINNING BRENNAN JB7 LETS YOU STORE, BROWSE AND PLAY UP TO 5000 OF YOUR CDS*". Text in a text box headed "The face behind the Brennan JB7" stated "Ever since CDs were invented Martin longed for a CD player that would hold his entire disorganised CD collection".
Issue
The complainant challenged whether the claim "CD player with a hard drive that lets you store, browse and play up to 5000 of your CDs" misleadingly implied that the advertised product enabled consumers to copy 5000 CDs at a quality equivalent to CD quality, because they understood the JB7 would hold far fewer CDs of a quality equivalent to that of a CD.
Response
3GA said they had only received a single complaint on the issue, despite a large number of consumers viewing the ad or similar ads. They said the JB7 was a digital audio player and they were not aware of such a device that did not use audio compression, which involved a trade off between the quality of the recordings and the number of CDs that could be stored. They believed the average consumer would understand that. They also said the ad stated 'up to' 5,000 CDs and believed that made clear that that figure would depend on the kind of music and the level of compression.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA noted the ad referred to the Brennan JB7 as a "CD player with a hard drive that lets you store, browse and play up to 5000 of your CDs". We also noted the ad featured the claims " ... it will play your entire music collection ... ", " ... just every album you've collected over the years, every favourite track ... JB7 owners rediscover then fall in love with their music again ... " and " ... you'll have a great weekend encountering your music all over again". We therefore noted the ad focused on the JB7's ability to enable consumers to rediscover their CD collection. In that context, we considered consumers would understand the ad to mean that the JB7 had the capacity to store and play up to 5,000 CDs in a quality equivalent to that of a CD. Because we understood the 500Gb model of the JB7 could store 630 CDs in a quality equivalent to that of a CD and the 320Gb model of the JB7 could store 420 CDs in a quality equivalent to that of a CD, we considered that the ad was likely to mislead as to the capability of the advertised product.
On that basis, we concluded the ad breached the Code.
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
3.9
3.9
Marketing communications must state significant limitations and qualifications. Qualifications may clarify but must not contradict the claims that they qualify.
(Qualification).
Action
The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told 3GA to ensure future ads were not likely to mislead consumers as to the capabilities of the JB7.
