Ad description
The home page of the Nectar Sleep website www.nectarsleep.co.uk, seen on 23 January 2026, featured the text “THE NECTAR PRICE DROP IS HERE. Our lowest prices ever. Save up to 65% [asterisk] on your dream sleep”. Smaller text underneath next to an asterisk read “Savings compared to Similar Brands Avg Prices”.
Issue
Simba Sleep Ltd challenged whether the basis of the “Similar Brands Avg Prices” and associated savings claims was made clear and was misleading.
Response
Nectar Sleep Ltd said the headline claim “Save up to 65%” compared their prices with the average prices of competitors’ equivalent products. The explanatory wording “Savings compared to Similar Brands Avg Prices” was placed directly underneath the headline claim. They believed the placement near to the headline claim, as well as the use of an asterisk, meant consumers would understand the basis on which that headline claim was made. The explanatory wording linked to another page on Nectar Sleep’s website which explained how the Similar Brands Average Price figure had been calculated. That page listed the competitor products which Nectar Sleep had used for the comparison as well as the date on which the prices were checked.
Nectar Sleep said the Similar Brands Average Price was determined by identifying the current selling prices of three comparable competitor products and calculating the average of those prices. The average price was compared to the price of the equivalent Nectar Sleep product to calculate the percentage saving. To calculate the headline “Save up to” claim, Nectar Sleep calculated the Similar Brands Average Price for each of its mattress products, and took the mean average saving to use as the basis for the headline savings claim for all its mattresses. They said this ensured that at least 10% of product lines had the full advertised saving, if not more. However, in January 2026 the claim “Save up to 65%” was published due to an administrative error. Nectar Sleep said the 65% saving was only available on memory foam mattresses; they provided a screenshot showing the percentage savings claims they had intended to make on their website.
Nectar Sleep said the basis of the Similar Brands Average Price claim was a comparison rather than a discount. In January 2026, 61% of Nectar Sleep products were sold at the prices used as the basis of the Similar Brands Average Price comparison claims, and 39% were sold at discounted prices. Although the incorrect savings claim had been used, the “Save up to 65%” figure was accurate for all memory foam mattresses sold, and the underlying comparison data was available to consumers on the explanatory page. They said they did not use discounted prices on their own products as the basis of comparative savings claims, and that if a product was discounted the Similar Brands Average Price claim would not be misleading since the discounted Nectar Sleep product would result in an increased percentage saving for consumers.
Assessment
Upheld
The CAP Code stated that price claims such as “up to” and “from” must not mislead by exaggerating the availability or amount of benefits likely to be obtained by the consumer. The ASA considered that consumers would typically understand “up to” percentage savings claims to be made in the context of a sale or promotion, and to represent a potential saving consumers could achieve compared to the usual selling price of a product. Consumers would expect savings claims that referenced competing products to be based on genuine, established prices for those products so they could make a direct comparison when choosing between them, and compare prices that were actually available.
The ad featured the claims “the Nectar price drop is here” and “save up to 65%”. We considered consumers would understand the claim “save up to 65%” to mean that they could make a genuine saving against the usual selling price of Nectar Sleep’s products. That impression was reinforced by the reference to the “Nectar price drop”. We considered consumers would understand the “price drop” to mean that Nectar Sleep had recently reduced the price of their products, and that the associated savings claim was therefore made as part of a sale or price reduction. Smaller text underneath the savings claim read “Savings compared to Similar Brands Average Prices”. Nectar Sleep believed consumers would understand that the claimed saving was made against the average price of comparable competitor products, rather than their own usual selling prices. However, we considered that most consumers were unlikely to be familiar with the term “Similar Brands Average Prices”, or know how the figure had been calculated. In the context of claims referencing a “price drop”, “lowest prices ever” and the quoted large percentage savings, we considered that the reference to Similar Brands Average Prices was ambiguous and likely to be confusing to consumers who expected the quoted savings to be achieved as part of a sale.
We understood the “Similar Brands Average Price” figure for each mattress was reached by calculating the average selling price of three competitor products Nectar Sleep considered were comparable. We considered that, due to the ambiguous and broad nature of the claim, consumers would also expect the “Similar Brands Average Price” to be representative of the price at which similar products were generally sold across the mattress sector, and have included products from a wide range of other well-known retailers. Because the “average price” was calculated from only three competitor products, a number of retailers were excluded from the comparison. The headline “save up to” claim featured on the Nectar Sleep home page was reached by calculating the “Similar Brands Average Price” percentage saving for each mattress and using the mean average saving as the basis for the headline claim. We considered that because the Similar Brands Average Price was based on an average, and consumers were not able to purchase a competing product at that price, the claimed 65% saving was not based on an established, genuinely available reference price.
We further considered that the methodology used to calculate the headline percentage savings claim limited its use as a comparison tool for consumers. Because the “up to” savings claim was calculated by taking an average of the savings across all of Nectar Sleep’s mattresses, it was difficult for consumers to directly compare Nectar Sleep’s products to its competitors and understand which products they could make the greatest savings against. The information provided by Nectar Sleep indicated that the highest percentage savings against the Similar Brands Average Price only applied to memory foam mattresses; for some products, the percentage saving was considerably less than 65%. We understood that the claim “up to 65%” had been used in error, and that Nectar Sleep had intended to claim a saving of up to 45% on all of its mattresses. Regardless, we considered that because the ad implied that consumers could save up to 65% against the usual selling price of Nectar Sleep’s products, and it was unclear how the “Similar Brands Average Price” and percentage savings claim had been calculated, it misleadingly exaggerated the savings consumers could achieve.
Because we considered that consumers were likely to understand the claim “Save up to 65%” to refer to a genuine saving against the usual selling price of Nectar Sleep’s products, but the claim was based on a comparison with an average of selected competitor’s prices, we concluded the ad was misleading.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising), 3.7 (Substantiation) and 3.22 (Prices).
Action
The ad must not appear again in the form complained of. We told Nectar Sleep Ltd to ensure that future “save up to” claims were not misleading and that they made the basis of their savings claims clear. We also told them to ensure that comparisons against other brands’ prices were based on actual prices for those products.
