Ad description
An ad posted by AJD Recruitment on Reed.co.uk for a teaching assistant role seen in October 2016, was headed “Teaching Assistant - Essex - Up To £17,000”.
Issue
The complainant, who contacted the advertiser but was told about a course rather than the advertised job, challenged whether the ad was misleading.
Response
AJD Recruitment did not respond to the ASA’s enquiries.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA was concerned by AJD Recruitment’s lack of response and apparent disregard for the Code, and ruled that they had breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 1.7 1.7 Any unreasonable delay in responding to the ASA's enquiries will normally be considered a breach of the Code. (Unreasonable delay). We reminded them of their responsibility to respond promptly to our enquiries and told them to do so in the future.
We considered consumers would interpret the ad as advertising an available job. However, we understood that when the complainant contacted AJD Recruitment they were given information about a course rather than details of the job advertised. Because AJD Recruitment had not provided any evidence to demonstrate the ad related to a genuine vacancy or explain the complainant’s experience, we therefore 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
20.2
20.2
Employment marketing communications must relate to genuine vacancies and potential employees must not be asked to pay for information.
Living and working conditions must not be misrepresented. Quoted earnings must be precise; if one has to be made, a forecast must not be unrepresentative. If income is earned from a basic salary and commission, commission only or in some other way, that must be made clear.
(Employment).
Action
The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told AJD Recruitment Ltd to ensure their future advertising did not misleadingly imply job opportunities were available if that was not the case. We referred the matter to the CAP Compliance team.
