Ad description
An email for Eithad Airways, received on 7 January 2017, offering an upgraded seat after a flight was purchased with Etihad. It included text which stated “Upgrade to experience our business studio”. An image included in the ad showed a cabin that featured a horizontal and dressed bed with a bedside table and other storage space.
Issue
The complainant, who had purchased an upgrade on the understanding they would receive a seat which resembled the one represented in the ad, but believed they had received an inferior seat, challenged whether the ad was misleading and exaggerated the performance of the product.
Response
Etihad Airways said they operated a mixed fleet of aircraft, some featuring an earlier generation of cabin product. They said, irrespective of that, customers in long-haul Business Class had many identical features to Business Studio and provided some examples. All seats converted to full flat beds, every seat had aisle access and passengers had access to on-demand menus. They said that, in line with industry practice, when advertising their Business Class cabins, they would feature their latest cabins. Prior to booking, however, customers were made aware of the aircraft and equipment being operated and the cabin seat product being offered.
They said when the complainant clicked on the automated email presenting the option to bid for an upgrade on up to three sectors of their itinerary, they were presented with an offer screen with a fuller explanation of the flight sectors available for upgrade bids and details of the specific cabin products available including Business Studio and Business Class products. They sent through evidence which demonstrated the seat the complainant purchased could be moved from an inclined position to a lie flat 180 degree bed position.
They did not think the images of the Business Class product misrepresented or exaggerated the product.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA considered that consumers would be likely to understand from the ad, namely the initial email, that if they participated in the offer to “Upgrade to experience our business studio” they would achieve an airline experience similar to the one depicted in the email.
We understood that when a customer clicked through from the email to a landing page on the advertiser’s website there were two cabin products featured, ‘Business Studio’ and ‘Business Class’, and they could bid to upgrade to either of those options. We considered that the product names, photographs and descriptions of the two upgrade options, as featured on the landing page, would be seen by consumers as fairly similar. However, we understood from the advertisers that ‘Business Studio’ was a superior product and the image in the email represented ‘Business Studio’. Although the email had referred to “our business studio”, it had not indicated that there were different “Business” upgrade options, one of which was superior to the other. In the absence of further clarification or qualification, we considered a consumer’s impression would be that the seat featured in the email would closely resemble the one they were bidding on and would subsequently receive.
We noted the complainant maintained that they had purchased the upgrade on the understanding they would receive the Business Studio product as was represented to them in the email they received and that they believed the image had been enhanced to make the product appear more spacious.
We further considered that, while consumers would be aware that older aircrafts did not carry some of the modern features of newer aircrafts, they should still be able to achieve a broadly similar experience as represented to them in the airline’s advertising. We considered that the further images supplied to us by the advertiser showed that the Business Class cabin was not as spacious and private as was implied by the image on the landing page. Therefore we considered the ad exaggerated the benefit of purchasing a Business Class cabin product.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 and 3.3 (Misleading Advertising), 3.7 (Substantiation) and 3.11 (Exaggeration).
Action
The ad must not appear again in the form complained of. We told Etihad Airways to ensure their ads clearly presented material information and to ensure the images they used in their advertising did not exaggerate the benefit of the product.
