Background
Summary of Council decision:
Four issues were investigated, of which three were Upheld and one was Not upheld.
Ad description
Three ads for the customer acquisitions and marketing company HeroCorp, seen throughout December 2016:
a. The website www.herocorp.co.uk, under the heading “OUR NETWORK”, stated “HeroCorp’s network is comprised of Over [sic] 65 cities in Europe and more than 2500 sales and marketing professionals”. Under the heading “OUR PHILOSOPHY” the ad stated “125000 Approx. New customers, yearly”.
b. A tweet, @herocorpuk, posted 15 December 2016 stated “HeroCorp saved £6.7 million for UK residents in 2016 so far. #energyefficiency #Business”.
c. A job posting seen on LinkedIn stated “Entry Level Marketing Assistant … Immediate Start … Employment type … Full-time … Job function … Advertising, Human Resources, Public Relations”.
Issue
The complainant challenged whether the following claims were misleading and could be substantiated:
1. “HeroCorp’s network is comprised Over [sic] 65 cities in Europe and more than 2500 sales and marketing professionals” in ad (a);
2. “125000 Approx. New customers, yearly” in ad (a);
3. “HeroCorp saved £6.7 million for UK residents in 2016 so far” in ad (b); and
4. the complainant also challenged whether the advertised job in ad (c) was misleading.
Response
1. HeroCorp explained that their business model was acquiring customers and selling the leads directly to their clients. Their goal was to increase their clients’ customer base. As an example, they stated that one client was a comparison site, which, amongst other elements, offered a comparison of energy tariffs; HeroCorp sought to help educate UK consumers on the energy industry by showing them how unit rates affected their energy bills and showing a full comparison of the energy market, ensuring customers could find the most cost-effective provider for their homes.
They said they provided cover in several countries throughout Europe for their clients using a network of business owners and partners. They said they could train clients and provide their clients with a reach of over 65 cities, should their marketing campaigns require it most recent client was working within 12 cities across the UK. They said the word “networks” referred to many different forms of groups, which included social media sites, and that it was commonplace for business owners to join such groups to meet like-minded people and share ideas. HeroCorp said that in this instance the term “network” was used to show their new clients how they could provide clients a service across various cities, namely through their network of business and partners which included social media sites.
They did not believe the claim implied ownership or that HeroCorp owned a network. They stated if they had wanted to imply that the network was owned by HeroCorp and was formed of their own professionals, they would have used a term such as “organisation” or “business”. They provided the Cambridge dictionary definition of “network” which stated, “… a group of people or organizations in different places who work together and share information”. They also provided two common phrases as examples: “He also has a network of contacts who give him help when he needs it” and “a network of agents/dealers/suppliers”. They believed these examples supported their intended use of the claim.
2. HeroCorp stated that on their website they had explained that they were a customer acquisitions company and acquired customers for their clients. They asserted that they did provide around 125,000 new customers for their clients and they were acquiring 3,200 new customers whom have been personally trained by HeroCorp each week across their network. HeroCorp provided a graph from a consumer-facing financial service website as evidence that they had acquired 3,600 customers for that client each week. They provided documentation that listed 200,000 customers (identified by postcode), an application date (from February 2016 to September 2017), an energy tariff name, a current energy supplier, an alternative supplier name, monthly and total savings, and a payment method.
3. HeroCorp said they provided a non-biased quote for all energy providers in the UK that gave the public the ability to reduce their energy costs by reducing the fixed unit rate on a consumer’s energy bill. HeroCorp said that to date their marketing system and network trained and helped the UK public reduce their energy costs by over £10million. They said they could provide full details of customer savings as evidence as well as a weekly breakdown of customer acquisitions and net savings. HeroCorp provided a graph and a breakdown from a client (the comparison site) that covered 16 months as evidence that the client made savings for their customers. They also provided an email, dated 28 June 2017, which stated “since we started working with HeroCorp, we have 70,176 customers where [sic] the energy company has confirmed their switch, with a total estimated saving of £10,265,536”. They recognised that the ad could have referred to “estimated savings” and stated their ads would do so in future.
4. HeroCorp said that they had various clients and campaigns that required people with different skills for particular roles. They said the position advertised was as clear as it could be and was now filled, providing the employee’s signed contract as evidence. HeroCorp said all applicants were screened via a phone call to confirm that the applicant had applied for the correct position and to ensure that the applicant understood the details of the role. They said after reviewing the complaints, they asked their recruitment team to double check all ads, to remove any position that was no longer available and to ensure payment and earnings are clear. This also included retraining all recruitment staff to ensure a more thorough phone screening prior to an applicant being interviewed.
Assessment
1. Upheld
The ASA considered that HeroCorp’s prospective customers, businesses and traders, would understand the claim “HeroCorp’s network is comprised Over [sic] 65 cities in Europe and more than 2500 sales and marketing professionals” in ad (a) to mean that HeroCorp had access to thousands of sales and marketing professionals across many European cities, which would be beneficial for an individual or company’s marketing campaign. We acknowledged HeroCorp’s assertion that networks could be utilised by businesses to interact with other similar organisations and to share ideas. However, in this instance we considered that the claim implied that HeroCorp had their own professional network which was run and administered by them, rather than access to third-party networks that already existed, such as social media sites.
Because we had not seen evidence that HeroCorp itself had their own network, covering over 65 European cities that was comprised of more than 2,500 professionals, we concluded the ad was misleading and had not been substantiated.
On that point, ad (a) breached 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).
2. Upheld
We considered that businesses and traders would understand the claim, “125000 Approx. New customers, yearly” in ad (a) to mean that HeroCorp were acquiring several thousands of new customers year-on-year. We noted that HeroCorp said that this referred to the number new customers that they acquired for their clients, not the number of customers that they acquired for themselves. However, we considered that this was not clear from the ad. We noted HeroCorp’s assertion that they had acquired 3,600 customers for one financial service company each week, shown on a graph. However, we considered a single summary from one company only was not sufficient to support the claim. We also considered that the summary did not provide sufficient detail as it was not supported by further documentation or information, such as examples of how that company’s customers were acquired and how HeroCorp was responsible for the acquisition of that business. We acknowledged that the spreadsheet provided listed just over 93,000 customers (identified by postcode) from February 2016 to December 2016, when the ad was seen, and indicated that in 2017 over 100,000 customers were listed, although there appeared to be some duplicated listings within the documentation provided for 2016. We understood the spreadsheet indicated that the listed customers had been advised on switching to an alternative energy supplier. Whilst we accepted this documentation to indicate that HeroCorp had identified alternative energy providers offering potential savings for many consumers, we did not consider this was sufficient to support the claim that they themselves had acquired “125000 Approx. New customers, yearly”.
Because it was not clear that the claim related to new customers who were acquired for HeroCorp clients and because HeroCorp had not provided adequate evidence to support that claim, we concluded the ad was misleading and had not been substantiated.
On that point, ad (a) breached 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).
3. Upheld
We considered that although the basis for the claim was not initially apparent, businesses and traders were likely to understand the claim “HeroCorp saved £6.7 million for UK residents in 2016 so far. #energyefficiency #Business” in ad (b) to mean that through various means HeroCorp’s clients and UK customers had been able to reduce their energy bills. We acknowledged HeroCorp’s assertion that they provided quotes based on UK energy providers’ bills for clients and customers to reduce their energy costs and noted that the claim was supported by the graph and monthly breakdown. Nevertheless, because that information was from one customer only and lacked overall detail, particularly regarding how savings had been made, we considered the information to not be sufficient to support the claim. We also noted that the email provided stated the savings made were an estimate, however the email did not state the period in which the estimated savings applied and was not supported by further documentation. Furthermore, HeroCorp did not provide any additional detail to demonstrate whether clients they had suggested alternative providers to had then taken their recommendations to reduce energy bills.
Because HeroCorp had not provided adequate evidence to support their claim that they had saved £6.7 million for UK residents in 2016 so far, we concluded the ad was misleading and had not been substantiated.
On that point, ad (b) breached 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).
4. Not upheld
We noted that the job description made reference to “Entry Level Marketing Assistant … Immediate Start … Full-time … Advertising, Human Resources, Public Relations” in ad (c) and we considered prospective candidates would understand that HeroCorp were recruiting for an individual who had little or no marketing experience and who was available to start working in the role immediately. We acknowledged the signed contract provided by HeroCorp and we considered that this was sufficient evidence that the role was genuine and that an individual had been employed. We therefore concluded that the ad was not misleading.
On that point, we investigated ad (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),
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) and
20.2
20.2
Employment marketing communications must relate to genuine vacancies and potential employees must not be asked to pay for information.
Living and working conditions must not be misrepresented. Quoted earnings must be precise; if one has to be made, a forecast must not be unrepresentative. If income is earned from a basic salary and commission, commission only or in some other way, that must be made clear.
(Employment, homework schemes and business opportunities), but did not find it in breach.
Action
Ads (a) and (b) must not appear again in their current form. We told HeroCorp not to claim that they had a network over 65 European cities with more than 2,500 sales and marketing professionals, that they acquired around 125,000 new customers each year and that they had saved £6.7 million for UK residents in the absence of adequate evidence.
