Ad description

A website for bathroom suppliers Victoria Plum, wwv.victoriaplum.com, seen on 19 December 2016, included the text "Up to 60 per cent off - Great Savings on Big Brand Names". A number of brands were quoted in the ad which included Laura Ashley, The Bath Co, Mira Showers, Jacuzzi, Mode Bathrooms and Triton.

Issue

Victorian Plumbing, who understood the 60% offer was only available on Victoria Plum's exclusive products (The Bath Co and Mode Bathrooms), challenged whether the ad was misleading.

Response

Victoria Plum Ltd provided a list of branded products in the sale including the percentage that each product had been discounted by, which they believed substantiated the “up to 60 per cent off” claim.

In total 25 products out of the 250 products available in the sale received a 60% discount. All of those were either The Bath Co or Mode Bathroom products, which were only available from Victoria Plum. The remainder of those discounts ranged from 59% to 1%.

Assessment

Upheld

The ASA considered that consumers would understand the claim "Up to 60 per cent off - Great Savings on Big Brand Names" to mean that while not all products would be at that discounted price, a significant proportion of their products would be available with a 60% discount and that those discounts would be across a number of recognisable brand names which could include, but would not be exclusively, in-house or partnered brands.

That was reinforced by the list of brands which appeared immediately below the claim; 10% of sale products had 60% off, which was in line with CAP guidance. However, the 10% of products were limited to Victoria Plum's in-house and partnered brands. Only 10 other products were discounted between 59% and 30%. The majority of products were discounted between 29% and 1%.

We recognised that a significant proportion of products had been on sale with a 60% discount, but because the web page did not make clear that discount was limited to The Bath Co and Mode Bathrooms, we concluded the claim was likely to mislead.

The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rule  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 again in its current form. We told Victoria Plum Ltd not to imply that an advertised discount applied to a range of brands if that discount was only available on in-house or partnered brands.

CAP Code (Edition 12)

3.1     3.3    


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