Ad description
A website for Sports Direct, www.sportsdirect.com, seen on 11 February 2016, promoted sports goods. A page titled “Puma Arsenal Home Shirt 2015 2016” quoted the price £42.00. Smaller text next to and below the quoted price stated "£59.99” and “You save: £17.99", respectively.
Issue
The complainant, who understood that the product had never been sold on Sportsdirect.com at £59.99, challenged whether the price claim "£59.99" and the savings claim were misleading and could be substantiated.
Response
Sportsdirect.com Retail Ltd t/a Sportsdirect.com stated that the higher price, £59.99, was based on the Recommended Retail Price (RRP) of the shirt. They provided a price list from the kit manufacturer Puma, which showed that the RRP for the kit was £60. They also submitted a schedule of prices for replica kit shirts for Arsenal Football Club, including the kit advertised, and for other clubs, along with screenshots of websites on which those kits were sold.
Sportsdirect.com believed the evidence demonstrated consistent price points of between £55 and £65 for those types of shirts, whether offered for sale by the Clubs, the kit manufacturers or retailers. They believed that the higher price of £59.99 on which the savings claim was based did not differ significantly from the price recommended by the manufacturer, or the prices at which those types of shirts were generally sold.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA noted Sportsdirect.com’s comments that the price of £59.99 was intended to represent the product’s RRP. However, in the absence of any qualification in the ad regarding the basis of that higher price, we considered that consumers were likely to understand that £59.99 represented the price at which the kit was usually sold on Sportsdirect.com, and that the savings claim “You save: £17.99” was based on that usual selling price. We therefore expected to see evidence to demonstrate that £59.99 was the price at which the kit was usually sold on Sportsdirect.com and that the savings claim represented genuine savings against the usual selling price.
Because the evidence provided by Sportsdirect.com related to the prices of the featured kit, and other similar products, offered on other websites, we did not consider that it was adequate in demonstrating that the kit advertised was usually sold at £59.99 on their own website and that the savings claim represented genuine savings against that usual selling price. We therefore concluded that the price claim “£59.99” and the savings claim were 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 3.17 3.17 Price statements must not mislead by omission, undue emphasis or distortion. They must relate to the product featured in the marketing communication. (Prices).
Action
The ad must not appear again in its current form again. We told Sportsdirect.com to ensure that they did not make savings claims that were likely to be understood as being based on the prices at which the products were usually sold, unless they held adequate evidence to substantiate those claims. We also told Sportsdirect.com to ensure that they made clear the basis of savings claims in future advertising, if the savings were intended to be based on other prices that were not the products’ usual selling prices.
