Ad description
A website, www.britannia-fire.co.uk, for fire extinguisher manufacturer Britannia Fire Ltd, seen on 15 November 2017. The website included text at the top of the page that stated “THE P50 RANGE REQUIRES ONLY SIMPLE ANNUAL MAINTENANCE BY YOUR STAFF MEMBERS”. Further down the page under the subheading “Britannia Fire UK fire extinguisher manufacturers” additional text stated “Britannia Fire offers cartridge and stored pressure models together with our new generation P50 composite extinguisher. This revolutionary extinguisher … requires only one overhaul service at the 10 year anniversary. It requires simple annual maintenance by staff members”.
Issue
Anderstore Ltd challenged whether the claim “The P50 range requires only simple annual maintenance by your staff members” was misleading and could be substantiated.
Response
Britannia Fire Ltd said that the claim “simple annual maintenance” meant that maintenance had to be carried out only once a year. They said the claim did not imply that anyone who owned the extinguisher had to fully service it and that the simplicity of the extinguisher was one of its design features. They added that the maintenance and use of each fire extinguisher should be assigned to someone who had the relevant training and experience to maintain the extinguisher.
Britannia Fire said that under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, extinguishers could be maintained in-house by anyone who understood the necessary fire safety guidelines and legislation. They said there were no legal requirements that a third party or fire company maintained the extinguisher.
Britannia Fire also provided a Competency Sign-Off sheet for customers who owned the P50 Fireworld Self-Maintenance Extinguisher which included the steps involved in maintaining the extinguisher. Those steps were: “1) visually inspecting extinguisher for damage, check the tamper seal is in place; 2) Remove any dust or dirt with a clean moist cloth [and] do not use chemicals; 3) Check the manufacturing date indicated by a coloured plug in the nozzle-holder, each colour representing a manufacturing year (list on back of extinguisher) [and] if extinguisher is older than ten years, the units need to be replaced or refurbished; 4) Visually ensure that gauge needles on all gauges are in the green segment of the gauge display. If a gauge needle is in the red segment, extinguisher must be replaced; 5) Check forward facing gauge with the magnet supplied to ensure it moves freely; 6) Record inspection on the yearly inspection table on the rear of the extinguisher and also in the fire log book”.
Britannia Fire said the P50 had a 20-year life span with a 10-year operational corrosion guarantee and a 10-year quality assurance on material defects and workmanship. At the end of 10 years the owner could choose to have a manufacturer’s overhaul to extend the life of the extinguisher. They said that the overhaul was not the same as a service or maintenance check.
Assessment
Not upheld
The ASA acknowledged that the complainant was concerned that the ad did not make clear that the P50 fire extinguisher would require an overhaul after 10 years. However, the ASA considered that consumers would interpret the claim “The P50 range requires only simple annual maintenance by your staff members” to mean that the maintenance of the P50 fire extinguisher did not require any special expertise or advanced training but that consumers would understand at much longer intervals it might require a more thorough overhaul. We noted, in any case, that text further down the page made clear the need for a service after 10 years.
We also considered that the majority of the procedures outlined in the six-step maintenance check, such as visually inspecting the extinguisher for damage and checking the tamper seal was in place, were simple and that most people would be capable of carrying out such inspections. While the P50 required a refurbishment or replacement by the manufacturer after 10 years into its 20-year lifespan, we considered that it otherwise only required annual maintenance steps carried out by staff members.
Because the P50 did not require maintenance that was beyond the expertise or skill of in-house staff members we concluded the claim that the P50 required “The P50 range requires only simple annual maintenance by your staff members” had been substantiated and was therefore not misleading.
On that point, we investigated the ad under 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
3.7
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), but did not find it in breach.
Action
No further action necessary.
