Background

Summary of Council decision:

Three issues were investigated, all of which were Upheld.

Ad description

Claims on www.granderwater.co.uk, seen on 10 June 2016, promoted water revitalisation products. Text stated, "Grander Water brings you the freshness and vitality of water at its source. The water you wash with feels softer and is more beneficial to your skin. The water you drink tastes cleaner and fresher ...".

Issue

The complainant challenged whether the following claims were misleading and could be substantiated:

1. "The water you drink tastes cleaner and fresher";

2. "The water you wash with feels softer"; and

3. "The water you wash with … is more beneficial to your skin".

Response

Bevital (UK) Ltd t/a Grander Water provided several ‘industry journal’ marketing materials, a document outlining ‘UK Customer Experiences’ and a survey of various properties which had had Grander Technology installed, carried out by a third-party organisation. They highlighted a number of testimonials within the documentation they had provided; for example, guests in a hotel had remarked that the water in the swimming pool no longer caused itching once the product had been installed.

Assessment

1. & 2. Upheld

The ASA considered that consumers were likely to understand the claim “The water you drink tastes cleaner and fresher” and "The water you wash with feels softer" to mean that their products would have a noticeable effect on the taste and feel of water in comparison to water from household taps in the UK that had not had this technology fitted. Both claims were likely to be taken as relating to subjective experiences, but we would nevertheless expect to see evidence demonstrating that consumers had genuinely perceived the differences described.

It was not clear from the information provided how the technology was intended to work. We noted that “magnetized [sic] water” and “the principle of information transfer to restore water’s original structure” were referred to in the documents provided, but that was not elaborated on in the evidence.

We considered that the marketing materials provided did not constitute evidence in support of the claims. Nor did we consider testimonials to be evidence of the standard required to support the claims. While the survey presented some evidence that properties where the product had been installed, such as hotels, had had reported improvements in the taste and feel of water, we did not consider it to be robust evidence demonstrating consumers could genuinely perceive a difference in the water with and without using the product. We therefore concluded that the claims had not been substantiated and were misleading.

On those points, 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  3.7 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).

3. Upheld

We considered that consumers were likely to understand the claim "The water you wash with is more beneficial to your skin" to mean that water used with their products had a positive effect on skin compared to water from household taps. We considered that it would be interpreted as an objective claim that was capable of being substantiated, and we therefore expected to see documentary evidence to support it. We did not consider testimonials to be sufficient to do so.

Given that we had not seen any evidence to demonstrate that water used with their products had a positive effect on skin compared to water from consumers' taps that had not had this technology fitted, we concluded that the claim had not been substantiated and was misleading.

On that point, 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  3.7 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).

Action

The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told Bevital (UK) Ltd not to make claims that their products could affect the taste or feel of water, or that they could make water more beneficial to skin, unless they held adequate evidence to substantiate those claims.

CAP Code (Edition 12)

3.1     3.7    


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