Background
Summary of Council decision:
Three issues were investigated, all were Upheld.
Ad description
A directory ad, for a letting agency, stated "Why you should instruct Doorknobs ... The No 1 Lettings Agent in the Tunbridge Wells area as your ARLA Qualified Lettings Agent ... Doorknobs are No 1 for taking the most Landlord Instructions and No 1 for Letting the most Properties every month".
Issue
TW Property challenged whether the following claims were misleading, and could be substantiated:
1. "The No 1 lettings agent in the Tunbridge Wells area";
2. "No 1 for taking the most Landlord Instructions"; and
3. "No 1 for Letting the most Properties every month".
Response
1., 2. & 3.
Doorknobs said that they subscribed to Rightmoveplus, which was a facility that allowed them to analyse their agency's performance in relation to new listings and available stock, against other agents in their area, on the Rightmove property portal. They told us they had been using Rightmoveplus for approximately three years and that they had been consistently ranked first, for both new listings and available stock in the TN1, TN2, TN3 and TN4 postcodes, which they felt substantiated the "No 1" claims in the ad. They provided a number of printouts from Rightmoveplus as evidence that that was the case.
Assessment
1., 2. & 3. Upheld
The ASA considered that the claim "The No 1 lettings agent in the Tunbridge Wells area" would be seen as a claim of market leadership, which equated to a claim that they had let more properties than their competitors and we noted that that was a claim that had also been made explicitly in the ad. We considered that neither the number of new listings nor the amount of available stock would necessarily reflect the number of successful lettings per agent and therefore that data could not constitute an accurate representation of market leadership. In addition, we considered that data from Rightmove was not sufficient to substantiate any of the "No 1" claims in the ad because, despite its popularity, it was not necessarily used by all agents and did not necessarily accurately represent all properties that were available to let in an area at any given time. We also noted the small print on the data provided by Rightmove, stated that they made no warranty as to the suitability of their data for any purpose. Because we had not seen sufficiently robust evidence to substantiate the claims in the ad, we concluded that they breached the Code.
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 3.33 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 ad must not appear again in its current form.
