Ad description
A website, www.hdmicable4u.co.uk featured various types of electronic cables. The home page included the headline "FREE NEXT DAY DELIVERY GUARANTEED". The website included a link to "Delivery & Returns" which stated "We have a FREE NEXT DAY DELIVERY policy to all our customers within all UK mainland postcodes ... We send our parcels via Royal Mail, DHL or Parcel Force ... Orders received by 5:00pm will be dispatched the same day for next day delivery".
Issue
The complainant challenged whether the claim "Next day delivery guaranteed" was misleading and could be substantiated.
Response
HDMICABLE4U told us the Royal Mail website said it aimed to deliver first class mail by the next day which they believed substantiated the next day delivery claim. The advertiser supplied revised text "Next Day delivery guaranteed Mon - Fri" in order to address Royal Mail's delivery timing. They also said they used Royal Mail or a courier company to ensure next day delivery.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA considered the claim was a definitive one so all customers would expect their goods to be delivered the following day no matter what time they placed their order. We acknowledged that next day delivery was possible if sent via a courier but this might not be the case for all customers whose orders were sent by first class post. We noted the advertiser had amended their headline claim to "FREE DELIVERY GUARANTEED" but small print continued to state "with next day delivery". Because the advertiser could not guarantee that all customers received their goods the following day, we concluded that 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
3.9
3.9
Marketing communications must state significant limitations and qualifications. Qualifications may clarify but must not contradict the claims that they qualify.
(Qualification).
Action
The ad must not appear again in its current form.
