Ad description
Marketing materials for Gerflor Ltd, a flooring company, seen in April and May 2016, contained various claims about Taralay Impression Control Flooring.
a. A print ad on the cover of a flooring trade magazine featured text stating “Safety flooring that is slip resistant, tough and offers outstanding performance” imposed over a picture of three healthcare professionals walking along a hospital corridor. A box in the top left-hand corner of the image stated “SAFETY IN NUMBERS”. Beneath this were three roundels. One stated “HSE 36+ SLIP RESISTANT”, one featured an image of a person falling and text stating “R11 SLIP RESISTANT”, and one stated “20 RTH RZ ROUGHNESS”.
b. A print ad seen in the same magazine featured the same claims as ad (a) alongside an image of flooring.
c. A sample card available on the advertiser’s website, www.gerflor.co.uk, featured the same claims as ads (a) and (b).
Issue
Polyflor Ltd, who understood that the product had not been tested to the standard for safety flooring, challenged whether the claim “safety flooring” was misleading and could be substantiated.
Response
Gerflor Ltd stated that there was no one standard or definition for the term “safety flooring” in the UK other than its literal meaning – i.e., that it had met certain safety standards because it was particularly rough and non-slippery. They stated that Taralay Impression Control was a new and tougher iteration of their Taralay range, developed approximately two years ago. They said that until that point, flooring had tended to require the inclusion of particles in order to ensure that it met the low slip potential standards set by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and remained low slip over the course of its lifetime. They said that Taralay Impression Control was an innovative product that displayed both these attributes without the addition of particles. Gerflor provided independent test reports measuring the flooring’s wet and dry slip resistance (using both pendulum and ramp tests) and surface roughness in its initial, unused state. The resulting scores were within the boundaries for which flooring could be termed to have “low slip potential” according to the HSE.
They stated that they generally provided a ten-year warranty on their floors, including the Taralay Impression Control range. They provided copies of two tests simulating wear. The first test, conducted in-house, subjected the flooring to 50,000 cycles of a castor chair and then measured the slip resistance using the pendulum test, in which a metal pendulum intended to mimic the action of a human heel striking a rubber slider against the floor’s surface. Gerflor provided a description of their in-house castor chair test method, which was adapted from British Standard test BS EN 425:2002. They explained that Gerflor’s test used harder wheels than those specified in the British Standard test, which they believed subjected the flooring to more rigorous wear and thus tested it to a higher standard. They supplied details of their internal slip resistance tests on three different variations of the product that had been subjected to 50,000 castor chair cycles. The results for all three were above the minimum score of 36 which flooring must meet to be considered “low slip potential”.
Gerflor had also commissioned further sustainability tests from an independent body. In these, the variation of Taralay Impression Control that obtained the lowest score in the in-house sustainability tests was subjected to 250,000 cycles of a pedatron, which simulated pedestrian footfall. Its slip resistance was measured using a pendulum test, resulting in a score of 38, which demonstrated low slip potential.
Gerflor considered this body of evidence to be sufficient to demonstrate that it was not misleading to refer to the product as “safety flooring”.
Assessment
Not upheld
The ASA noted that there was no official UK standard to which flooring had to conform in order to be called “safety flooring”. However, we understood that the term was generally used to refer to flooring with a high level of slip resistance that was sustainable over time. We noted that the magazine ad depicted the flooring being used in what appeared to be a hospital. It stated that the product was “specifically designed for hardworking places”, “ideal for the Education sectors” and “ideal for the Healthcare sector”. We therefore considered that readers would understand that the flooring was intended for high-traffic public environments in which long-term slip resistance would be a key safety concern due to the nature of their use. We acknowledged that the ads were aimed at a trade audience, who could be expected to have a high level of knowledge about the specific requirements for flooring in these types of environments, but considered that overall, the sustainability of a flooring product’s anti-slip properties over time would be significant to their understanding of the term “safety flooring”.
We understood that the complainant had tested the advertiser’s flooring to the standard for sustainable slip resistance in particle-based vinyl flooring, which measured the level of visible particles after a cycle of wear. However, given that Taralay Impression Control was not particle-based, and because we understood that there was no requirement that a floor must be particle-based in order to be termed “safety flooring”, we did not consider that its failure to meet that standard in itself indicated that it would be misleading to use the term to describe the product.
We assessed the results of the tests on the flooring in its initial state. We noted that these tests were conducted by an independent testing body in accordance with relevant British and European standards. We considered that they constituted robust evidence that the product had a high level of slip resistance in its original state, prior to wear.
We also assessed the sustainability tests conducted by the independent body, and considered that they robustly demonstrated that the product maintained low-slip qualities after 250,000 pedatron cycles. We considered that this demonstrated that the product remained low-slip after a period of wear. We noted there was no official standard that a product had to meet to be termed safety flooring. We, therefore, considered that the advertiser needed to demonstrate that the product met traders’ likely understanding of the term safety flooring, the most significant element of which was the sustainability of its anti-slip properties over time. As Gerflor had provided sufficient evidence to show that their flooring remained low-slip after a period of wear, we concluded that the claim had been substantiated and was not misleading.
We investigated ads (a), (b) and (c) under CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 3.1 Marketing communications must not materially mislead or be likely to do so. (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 them in breach.
Action
No further action required.
