Background
Summary of Council decision:
Two issues were investigated, both of which were Upheld.
Ad description
A leaflet and website (www.rightmove.co.uk) for an estate agent:
a. The leaflet stated "If your agent isn't marketing your house properly they won't get you the best price … haart Estate Agents of Dereham achieved an average of 100% of our asking prices in the last 3 months *Data source - Spicerhaart YOY Market Movement Analysis 2013".
b. Claims on www.rightmove.co.uk stated "The facts speak for themselves … It's a sellers [sic] market … +1138 We have hundreds of people on our books looking for houses in our area*… 99.80% Of asking prices achieved on properties we have sold in the last 3 months*". The asterisks linked to smaller print stating "*Source: spicerhaart data in house Dec 2013".
Issue
The complainant, Hammondlee Ltd, challenged whether the following claims were misleading and could be substantiated:
1. "haart Estate Agents of Dereham achieved an average of 100% of our asking prices in the last 3 months" in ad (a); and
2. "99.80% Of asking prices achieved on properties we have sold in the last 3 months*" in ad (b).
Response
1. & 2. SpicerHaart Estate Agents Ltd provided a data set from the Dereham branch listing the market price and agreed sale price of all properties sold during the three months prior to ad (a) being sent. They said that the data showed that the average agreed sales price as a percentage of the market price for those three months was 100.62%. They also provided a set of data from the Dereham branch listing the market price and agreed sale price of all properties sold for the three months prior to ad (b) being seen. They confirmed that ad (b) was updated on a monthly basis. They said that the data showed that the agreed sales price as a percentage of the asking price was 100.78% for the relevant period. They explained that, in both cases, where the market price was a range between two figures, the lower of the two figures was used, as the basis of the claims.
Assessment
1. & 2. Upheld
The ASA considered that consumers would interpret the claims to mean that the market price related to one price that the vendor had, on average, achieved 100% of from ad (a) or 98.80% of from ad (b). However, we noted that ad (b) did not state that the percentage was an average for all houses sold. We also noted that, in the majority of cases, the market price had been expressed as a range between two figures, and SpicerHaart had used the lower of the two figures when calculating the average percentage. We considered that, if a consumer was selling their house, they would want to achieve the higher price in the range, which we noted was not the case for any of the houses sold. We also noted that the text on the ad (a) stated "If your agent isn't marketing your house properly they won't get you the best price" and ad (b) stated "The facts speak for themselves … It's a seller's market". We considered that the text contributed to the impression that the houses were being sold at the best market price. Because we considered that the evidence was not adequate to support the impression that single asking prices had been achieved for the percentage of sales stated, we concluded the ad was misleading.
The ads 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) 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).
Action
The ad must not appear in its current form. We told SpicerHaart Estate Agents Ltd to ensure they were in a position to substantiate claims about the prices they had achieved.
