Ad description
An email from Purple Parking Ltd for airport parking stated "Pre booking Airport Parking could save you up to 50%* in our sale!... 50% OFF* AIRPORT PARKING". Small print stated "*Featured 50% discount is applicable to advance Airport Parking bookings at the following airports: Birmingham, East Midlands, Edinburgh, Glasgow, London Gatwick, London Heathrow, Liverpool, London Luton, Manchester and London Stansted. Comparison based on an arrival 01st April 2015 to 15th April 2015 - prices correct as of the 09th February 2015".
Issue
The complainant challenged whether the advertised savings claims were misleading and could be substantiated.
Response
Purple Parking Ltd provided data which they said confirmed that savings of 50% were available by pre-booking airport parking spaces. They said the data provided compared the savings available by pre-booking against the gate rates available on the day.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA noted that the ad included two claims that related to airport parking discounts which were either a definitive 50% off or, less specifically, up to 50% off airport parking. It was therefore unclear as to which saving amount it was being claimed consumers could achieve. We noted that the small print stated "Featured 50% discount is applicable to advance Airport Parking bookings [at selected airports]". We considered that it was also unclear as to whether consumers could save 50% only at the stated airports and therefore whether the claimed 'up to' saving applied to all other airports and that ambiguity was likely to mislead if consumers could not achieve a full 50% discount.
Nevertheless, we noted Purple Parking's assertion that the savings were based on advanced bookings compared with on the day gate rates and we considered that consumers were likely to understand from the prominent references to "pre-booking" in the subject line and in the main body of the ad, and "advance Airport Parking bookings" in the small print, that Purple Parking's discount was against their own, on the day rates. However, we noted that the data provided by Purple Parking compared one competitor car parking company at each selected airport and their own parking price at only one airport, Heathrow. In addition, the majority of the examples provided compared long-term parking prices, which therefore excluded sufficient examples of savings for short-term parking options. Furthermore, the evidence provided consisted of several individual unverifiable examples of savings, and did not include adequate sales data that compared all parking options over a sufficient period of time for advanced and on the day rates. We therefore considered the data was inadequate to demonstrate that consumers could save either 50%, or up to 50%, against the on the day rates.
Because Purple Parking did not provide adequate evidence to support the savings claims and that they were ambiguous, we concluded the ad was 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.
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),
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. We told Purple Parking Ltd to ensure that their savings claims were not ambiguous and did not mislead in future.
