Ad description

An Argos radio ad featured a voice-over that stated, "Make it the best Christmas ever with Argos. We've got all of this year's top gifts including Xbox One, Furby, iPad and GHDs. So don't miss out. Shop without the stress this weekend when you check and reserve at argos.co.uk and pick up your gifts straight away from over 700 stores nationwide. Argos it."

Issue

The complainant challenged whether the ad was misleading, because the Xbox One was not available to order in a number of stores.

Response

Argos Ltd said the ad was broadcast on 12 and 13 December and demand for Xbox One was extremely high. Supplies of both the Xbox and the PS4 were limited across the country so they secured additional stock before the ad went live. They noted that they sold the Xbox One as part of four packages; the Xbox One console, the Xbox One console plus Fifa 14 game, the Xbox One console plus Forza game and the Xbox One consule plus Fifa 14 and an extra controller. They provided stock reports for the week the ad went live that showed that for the Xbox One console, they took in 7,268 units of stock, made sales of 4,798 and had an ending stock of 2,629 units. For the Xbox One console plus Fifa 14, they took in 9,778 units of stock, sold 6,080 and had an ending stock of 7,648 units. For the Xbox One console plus Forza, they took in 7,000 units of stock, sold 1,113 and had an ending stock of 8,373 units. For the Xbox One console plus Fifa 14 and an extra controller, they took in no additional stock, sold 1,727 and had no ending stock.

Argos said these figures showed they had good stock of the products and good sales, and said the products remained available at the same prices as before Christmas. They said the aim of the ad was to let people know they had secured stock of an in demand product and they assured us that if they had not had stock coming in they would not have run the ad with the Xbox One mentioned as they knew that it would drive demand. They explained that they purchased and continued to purchase as much stock as they were allowed and received additional deliveries daily. They also said the stock was spread around to ensure there was availability across the country.

Argos explained that their check and reserve system allowed customers to reserve a piece of stock to collect and pay for up until the end of the next working day. Once all the available stock was purchased or reserved at a store, customers would see no stock available when checking online or in store. Argos confirmed that a number of Xbox consoles were reserved and never collected during the week the ad was played and in the run up to Christmas. They said they were taking steps to address this to prevent it from happening in the future.

The RACC said they had approved the ad as they had no reason to believe that stock would not be adequate.

Assessment

Not upheld

The ASA noted that the complainant was unable to order the Xbox One in a number of stores during the week the ad went live. However, we also noted that Argos had recognised that the product was in high demand and ensured there was as much additional stock as possible to meet the anticipated extra demand. We understood that customers were wrongly advised that there were no products in stock, but noted that Argos had recognised this and were taking steps to ensure this problem did not reoccur. Because we were satisfied that Argos had ensured that they had sufficient stock to meet demand, we concluded that the ad did not breach the Code.

We investigated the ad under BCAP Code rules  3.1 3.1 Advertisements must not materially mislead or be likely to do so.    3.2 3.2 Advertisements must not mislead consumers 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 consumers need in context to make informed decisions about whether or how to buy a product or service. Whether the omission or presentation of material information is likely to mislead consumers depends on the context, the medium and, if the medium of the advertisement is constrained by time or space, the measures that the advertiser takes to make that information available to consumers by other means.
 (Misleading advertising) and  3.28 3.28 Broadcasters must be satisfied that advertisers have made a reasonable estimate of demand.  (Availability), but did not find it in breach.

Action

No further action necessary.

BCAP Code

3.1     3.2     3.28    


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