Ad description
A website for 24 Hour London Locksmith Master, www.24-hour-london-locksmith-master.com, was headed "24 Hour London Locksmith Master For All Your Security Needs!" The home page featured the logo of the Master Locksmiths Association at the top of the page.
Issue
The Master Locksmiths Association, who said the advertisers were not members of their association, objected that the use of their logo on the website was misleading.
Response
24 Hour London Locksmith Master did not respond to the ASA's enquiries.
Assessment
The ASA was concerned by 24 Hour London Locksmith Master's lack of response and apparent disregard for the Code, which was a breach of CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 1.7 1.7 Any unreasonable delay in responding to the ASA's enquiries will normally be considered a breach of the Code. (Unreasonable delay). We reminded them of their responsibility to respond promptly to our enquiries and told them to do so in future.
Upheld
The website featured the logo of the Master Locksmiths Association (MLA), and the ASA understood from the MLA that 24 Hour London Locksmith Master were not members of their organisation. We concluded that their use of the logo 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. (Misleading advertising) and 3.50 3.50 Marketing communications must not display a trust mark, quality mark or equivalent without the necessary authorisation. Marketing communications must not claim that the marketer (or any other entity referred to), the marketing communication or the advertised product has been approved, endorsed or authorised by any public or other body if it has not or without complying with the terms of the approval, endorsement or authorisation. (Endorsements and testimonials).
Action
The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told 24 Hour London Locksmith Master to remove the MLA logo from their website, and not to use logos that stated or implied membership of organisations, unless they held documentary evidence that this was the case. We referred the matter to CAP's Compliance team.
