Ad description
Three ads for Simba Sleep Ltd, a mattress retailer, seen on 10 May 2017:
a. A sponsored ad on Google stated “Most Advanced Mattress Ever - The Simba Sleep Mattress”.
b. A sponsored Facebook post stated “How old is your mattress? 5 years, 10 years?! No wonder you’re waking up with aches and pains. It’s time to check out the Simba Hybrid Mattress. Simba is the world’s most advanced mattress with a combination of 2,500 conical pocket springs and memory foam. Wouldn’t it be nice to start each day with a smile on your face instead?”.
c. A website for Simba Sleep, www.simbasleep.com, featured text which stated “The Most Advanced Mattress in the World”. Smaller text below the heading stated “The Simba Hybrid® with a unique combination of 2,500 conical pocket springs and responsive memory foam”.
Issue
The complainant challenged whether the claims “Most Advanced Mattress Ever” and “The world’s most advanced mattress” were misleading and could be substantiated.
Response
Simba Sleep said that there was no reliable and objective way to grade how “advanced” products were. They said that consumers would understand the claims to be puffery or an expression of Simba Sleep’s opinion.
Notwithstanding the above, Simba Sleep said that they believed the product was market-leading in terms of its deployment of new technologies and innovations which were unique to Simba Sleep. They said that the mattress was developed in collaboration with the Sleep To Live Institute to establish unique layering and components, based on research on body profiles from over 10 million people.
Simba Sleep provided copies of patents and licenses which related to the conical springs, pocketed spring units and contrasting layers featured in the mattress which they believed demonstrated the mattress as being unique. They also supplied information about the Simbatex layer which they said provided super comfort for consumers. They said that they were not aware of any competitor product that had more innovative features.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA considered that the claims “Most Advanced Mattress Ever” and “The world’s most advanced mattress” were objective claims. We considered that consumers would understand the claims to mean that Simba Sleep provided the most technologically advanced mattress available across the whole market.
We noted that Simba Sleep had provided a number of patents and licenses which related to the different features of the mattress. While we acknowledged that the evidence demonstrated that the Simba Sleep mattress contained attributes that might well be unique, we considered that we had not seen comparative evidence and were therefore unable to assess whether the Simba Sleep mattress was more technologically advanced than all other mattresses available on the market. Because we had not seen objective comparative evidence in relation to all relevant competitors across the market, we concluded that the ads were misleading.
The ads breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 3.1 3.1 Marketing communications must not materially mislead or be likely to do so. 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. (Misleading advertising) and 3.33 3.33 Marketing communications that include a comparison with an identifiable competitor must not mislead, or be likely to mislead, the consumer about either the advertised product or the competing product. and 3.35 3.35 They must objectively compare one or more material, relevant, verifiable and representative feature of those products, which may include price. (Comparisons with identifiable competitors).
Action
The ads must not appear again in their current forms. We told Simba Sleep Ltd not to claim that their mattresses were the most technologically advanced on the market unless they held robust comparative documentary evidence.
