Ad description
One YouTube pre-roll ad and two online display ads for Aquoxis, a pressure washer product, seen in April 2026:
a. The YouTube ad featured clips of pressure washers being used to clean heavily soiled patios, decking, and vehicles. A voice-over stated, “I thought this viral pressure nozzle was another cleaning scam. Three months later, I haven’t touched my $400 pressure washer once […] This thing multiplies your garden hose pressure by fifteen times without using a single drop of electricity […] It’s like your hose suddenly became a military grade power washer […] It uses a patented hydraulic jet accelerator inside […] Cuts through mud like butter. Blasts away mould in one pass. Removes ten years of deck stains in minutes. Cleans second-storey windows from the ground […] Every single job took less than five minutes […] If you want military-grade cleaning power without the hassle, you need this.”
b. The first online display ad featured two side-by-side images of a pressure washer attachment, one of which showed electrical components inside the handle. Text underneath stated, “£49 Hack Making Power Wash Pros Nervous This £49 hose attachment is replacing £300 pressure washers across the UK”.
c. The second online display ad featured an image of a pressure washer attachment. Text underneath stated, “Inventor Beats £250 Pressure Washers This compact £49 nozzle turns your garden hose into a jet washer. No plug, no machine”.
Issue
The complainants challenged whether the ads misleadingly exaggerated the functionality and performance of the product.
Response
Cablelinker Electronics Ltd t/a Aquoxis did not respond to the ASA’s enquiries
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA was concerned by Cablelinker Electronics Ltd’s lack of response and apparent disregard for the Code, which was a breach of CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 1.7 (Unreasonable delay). We reminded them of their responsibility to provide a response to our enquiries and told them to do so in the future.
Ad (a) featured the claims “I haven’t touched my $400 pressure washer once”, “this thing multiplies your garden hose pressure by fifteen times without using a single drop of electricity” and “it’s like your hose suddenly became a military grade power washer”, accompanied by video clips of heavily soiled items being cleaned with powerful jets of water. We considered consumers would understand the ad to mean that the advertised product could be used to turn a garden hose into a highly powerful pressure washer without electricity, and deliver the cleaning results shown in the ad. Similarly, ad (b) featured the claim “this £49 hose attachment is replacing £300 pressure washers” and ad (c) featured the claim “Inventor Beats £250 Pressure Washers. This compact £49 nozzle turns your garden hose into a jet washer”. We considered consumers would understand those claims to mean the product could deliver cleaning results comparable to, or better than, traditional pressure washer products that cost significantly more. We therefore expected Aquoxis to hold evidence to demonstrate that was the case.
We had not seen any evidence regarding the performance of the product to support the assertion that it could increase the pressure of a garden hose, or perform as well as, or better than, more expensive pressure washer products. However, we noted that a number of the video clips in ad (a) that showed items being cleaned appeared to feature different pressure washers instead of the Aquoxis product. Furthermore, we considered the product images included in ads (b) and (c) appeared to have been at least partially generated by artificial intelligence, and differed both from each other and from the product shown in ad (a). One of the images in ad (b) appeared to show electrical components inside the handle that would have obstructed the flow of water. In the absence of adequate substantiation to demonstrate that the product could deliver the cleaning performance suggested in the ads, we considered the ads exaggerated the functionality of the product and concluded they were misleading.
The ads breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising), 3.7 (Substantiation) and 3.11 (Exaggeration).
Action
The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told Cablelinker Electronics Ltd t/a Aquoxis to ensure their ads did not misleadingly exaggerate the functionality of their products in the future, for example, by stating or implying that their product’s performance exceeded that of traditional pressure washers if that was not the case. We referred the matter to CAP’s Compliance team.
