Ad description
A website for Miscota, a retailer of products for pets and animals, www.miscota.com seen on 26 May 2017 featured the headline text, “10% discount! Minimum order amount £84.34”. Further text stated “YOUR HAPPY COUPON HAPPY10”.
Issue
The complainant, who placed an order exceeding the minimum amount but did not receive the discount and was told exclusions applied to the offer, challenged whether the claim “10% off” was misleading.
Response
Bilua E-Commerce SL did not respond to the ASA’s enquiries.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA was concerned by Miscota’s lack of response and apparent disregard for the Code, which was a breach of 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 provide a response to our enquiries and told them to do so in future.
We considered consumers were likely to interpret the claim, “10% discount! Minimum order amount £84.34”, to mean that the offer applied to all items available on the Miscota website as long as the minimum order amount was met. We noted that there were neither additional qualifications to the offer stated nor an indication that additional qualifications applied in the ad, and no link from the headline claim to any applicable significant conditions. However, we understood from the information given to the complainant that additional qualifications applied, e.g. that the discount excluded multi-buy items.
Because we considered that consumers would understand the offer to apply to all products available on the Miscota website when the minimum spend was met when in actuality this was not the case, we concluded that the claim “10% discount” was likely to mislead.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules
8.17
8.17
All marketing communications or other material referring to promotions must communicate all applicable significant conditions or information where the omission of such conditions or information is likely to mislead. Significant conditions or information may, depending on the circumstances, include:
and
8.17.1
8.17.1
How to participate
How to participate, including significant conditions and costs, and other major factors reasonably likely to influence consumers' decision or understanding about the promotion
(Significant conditions for promotions).
Action
The ad must not appear again in the form complained of. We told Miscota to ensure that ads for future promotions included significant conditions, including any exclusions applied to the offer. We referred the matter to CAP’s Compliance Team.
