Ad description
A website for National Express Group plc, www.nationalexpress.com, seen on 28 September featured text that stated “Leaving 30 October 2015 LONDON (Victoria Coach Station) to HEATHROW AIRPORT LONDON (Terminals 2, 3) … Journeys departing on Friday, 30 October 2015 …”. Below this was a coach schedule that listed two services to Heathrow airport that departed at 5.30pm and arrived at 6.15pm, with the journey time quoted as “0h 45m”.
Issue
The complainant, who frequently travelled from London Victoria to Heathrow airport by coach, challenged whether the 45-minute journey time for the Friday service departing at 5.30 pm was misleading and could be substantiated.
Response
National Express Group plc stated that the journey time quoted in the ad was based on their London Victoria to Heathrow airport route. The journey time would be affected by external factors such as traffic, weather, road works and the time of day.
National Express stated that they regularly reviewed their journey times so that they provided accurate information to customers and to also ensure that their timetables operated effectively. They further stated that with their London Victoria to Heathrow route, they had a number of services with different journey times, often less than 45 minutes depending on the service.
National Express provided spreadsheets showing some examples of tracking data from coaches on a variety of services from London Victoria to Heathrow, which they stated included the Friday 5.30 pm service. They stated that the data reflected service punctuality from a range of coaches, which showed that some services were scheduled to run from 30 minutes, 40 minutes, 45 minutes and beyond. They stated that it also showed that across the day there were faster and slower services, which constantly changed and resulted to an average journey time of 45 minutes.
National Express believed that it was impossible to provide exact journey times, as there were external factors outside their control and also because of the different services that they offered for the London Victoria to Heathrow route.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA noted that National Express offered a number of services for their London Victoria to Heathrow route and that the journey times varied.
We noted that National Express stated that the 45-minute journey time was based on the average of all the journey times for their different services to Heathrow Airport, which they had recorded in the spreadsheets they provided. Referring to the data, we noted that one journey time had been recorded for a service that departed London Victoria at 5.30 pm, but did not specify the day on which it ran. Furthermore, we understood that it had taken 47 minutes to reach Heathrow airport central bus station, which we understood was where all coach services called for terminals 2 and 3.
We considered that the 45-minute journey time should have been supported by data covering the same service that appeared in the ad, which departed on a Friday at 5.30 pm and was scheduled to arrive at Heathrow Airport at 6.15 pm. We expected National Express to have held data for that particular service, which ran at peak time, with actual departure and arrival times over a sufficient period of time to calculate an accurate estimated journey time. Therefore, because National Express had not provided such data, we concluded that the 45-minute journey time quoted for both the 5.30 pm coach services shown in the ad had not been substantiated and 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. (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 3.11 3.11 Marketing communications must not mislead consumers by exaggerating the capability or performance of a product. (Exaggeration).
Action
The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told National Express Group plc to ensure that their quoted journey times were based on robust documentary evidence.
