Ad description
A website for Kennel Registration, www.kennelreg.org.uk, a dog pedigree registration service, seen on 13 April 2018, featured a page titled “Transfer of ownership” which included text that stated “Free Pet Insurance”.
Issue
The complainant, who understood that the free insurance was not always available, challenged whether the claim was misleading and could be substantiated.
Response
Kennel Registration acknowledged the ASA’s enquiries but did not provide a substantive response.
Assessment
The ASA was concerned by Kennel Registration's lack of substantive response and apparent disregard for the Code, which was a breach of CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 1.7 (Unreasonable delay). We reminded them of their responsibility to provide a substantive response to our enquiries and told them to do so in the future.
Upheld
The ASA considered that consumers would understand the claim “Free Pet Insurance”, in the context of the page headed “Transfer of ownership”, to mean that if they transferred the ownership of their dog through the website, they would receive free pet insurance as part of the package.
We understood that upon completion of the transfer of ownership, consumers were directed to the website to activate the free pet insurance policy. Further, we understood that the free pet insurance was not always available and that it was subject to change, depending on the third-party company who was offering the insurance. We noted that on the website page “Terms & Conditions” it stated that the insurance was offered by a third-party affiliate and was subject to change without notice and that the pet insurance provider may vary.
We considered the claim that “Free Pet Insurance” was available as part of the package was misleading to consumers during periods when it was not available. We therefore considered that the claim should only be shown when free insurance was available. Because the free insurance was not available at the time the ad was seen by the complainant we concluded that the ad was misleading.
The ad breached 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).
Action
The ad must not appear in its current form. We told Kennel Registration to ensure that in the future they only advertised free pet insurance when it was available. We referred the matter to the CAP Compliance team.
