Ad description
Claims for laminated flooring, seen in November 2016, on www.saleflooringdirect.co.uk, stated "Kronotox Standard 7mm Winter Oak ... From £5.75m²".
Issue
The complainant challenged whether the claim "From £5.75m²" was misleading, because it was unclear that the price only applied to bulk purchases.
Response
Manorgate Ltd t/a Sale Flooring Direct did not respond to the ASA's enquiries.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA was concerned by Sale Flooring Direct's lack of response and apparent disregard for the Code, which was a breach of the 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.
We considered that consumers would understand the claim "From £5.75m²" to reflect the lowest price for the flooring and that, in most circumstances, they would be able to take advantage of that price. However, although the advertised price was the lowest available for the product, we understood that it only applied to bulk purchases of 30 packs (70m²) or more. We understood that the price of each pack, up to a total of 12 packs (27/28m²), was £15.30 each and £14.34 each for 13 to 29 packs (69m²). We therefore considered that, because the ad did not make clear that the advertised “from” price was only applied to bulk purchases, it had exaggerated the likely benefits available to consumers. We concluded that the ad gave a misleading impression of the cost of the flooring and the price that consumers were likely to pay.
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) and
3.17
3.17
Price statements must not mislead by omission, undue emphasis or distortion. They must relate to the product featured in the marketing communication.
and
3.22
3.22
Price claims such as "up to" and "from" must not exaggerate the availability or amount of benefits likely to be obtained by the consumer.
(Prices).
Action
The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told Manorgate Ltd trading as Sale Flooring Direct to ensure that the basis for their "from" prices were made clear if there were conditions attached, such as bulk purchases. We referred the matter to CAP's Compliance team.
