Ad description
A page on the Adamans website, adamans.com, a jeweller’s, seen on 20 August 2025, featured the text, “BUY 1 GET 2 FREE”.
A page on the website featured the heading “MOISSANITE WATCHES”. Text on the page stated “*AUTOMATICALLY APPLIES AT CART. LOWEST PRICED ITEM IS FREE. EXCLUDES SALE. T&CS APPLY”. The page featured product listings for moissanite watches, and text on each product listing stated, “BUY 1 GET 2 FREE”.
Issue
The complainant, who understood that the offer excluded moissanite products, challenged whether the promotion was misleading.
Response
Adamans Group Ltd t/a Adamans said the products in question were recent additions to the website and had initially been missing an internal tag used to identify them. They stated that the issue had been resolved and that they had replaced the product label to avoid any misleading advertising while they reviewed and updated their internal processes.
Adamans said the promotional code should not have worked at checkout, and therefore customers would have been made aware of the issue before completing their purchase.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA considered that consumers would understand that products labelled “BUY 1 GET 2 FREE”, whether shown in the product image or in the listing text, were included in the promotion. As the claim appeared across a page titled “MOISSANITE WATCHES”, we considered consumers would expect that the offer applied to the products featured on that page. Although text stated “T&Cs apply”, we considered that was not sufficient to override the impression that the promotion applied to the products that were labelled with the tag “BUY 1 GET 2 FREE”.
We acknowledged that Adamans said moissanite products were excluded and that their inclusion was due to a tagging error. However, at the time the ad was seen, the moissanite products included the label “BUY 1 GET 2 FREE” in their product images and on the product listings. In addition, after the changes were made, the promotional label remained visible in the product listings for several moissanite products, so it was unclear if those were included as part of the promotion.
Because the ad gave the impression that moissanite products were included in the offer, when they were not, and because it was unclear which items the promotion applied to, we concluded that the ad was misleading.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising), 3.9 (Qualification).
Action
The ad must not appear again in the form complained of. We told Adamans Group Ltd t/a Adamans to ensure their future advertising did not misleadingly give the impression that products were included in a promotional offer when they were not, and to ensure that they made clear which items were included in the offer.
