Background

Summary of Council decision:

Three issues were investigated, one of which was Upheld. The others were informally resolved after the advertiser agreed to amend their advertising.

Ad description

A website for Origin Mattress, www.originmattress.co.uk, seen on 31 October 2024, included text which stated, “HALLOWEEN SALE up to 45% OFF”. Text under the “Origin Hybrid Pro Mattress” listing stated, “Up to 45% off”, under which the sale price “from £529.00” was shown, followed by the original price of £961.00 with a line crossed through. Text under the “Origin Hybrid Mattress” listing stated, “Best Value 40% off”, above which the original price of £579.00 was shown with a line crossed through, followed by the sale price of £349.00.

Issue

Simba Sleep Ltd challenged whether the reference prices and associated savings claims made for the “Halloween Sale” were misleading.

Response

Origin Sleep UK Ltd t/a Origin Mattress said they had amended the ad to show a “Total Value” price, which was an estimation of the product value based on the prices of similar products. The “Total Value” price was displayed next to the product price on the website. They said they had also added text stating “not RRP” alongside the product price.

Origin Mattress made further changes to their website, which they believed made the basis for the reference prices clear to consumers. They updated “Total Value” to a “Similar Brands Avg Price”. Origin Mattress determined the “Similar Brands Avg Price” by identifying similar products sold by other companies before they worked out the average price of three of those examples. That price was displayed next to the actual price of the products and was used as the basis for the savings claims. Information on how the price was calculated, including the products used for the comparison, was included on the website. That page was viewable on a separate webpage or by hovering over the “Similar Brands Avg Price”.

Origin Mattress said that their sales referred to limited time sales that changed each week. Those sales included free products with the purchase of a mattress as well as additional 10% discounts. Origin Mattress explained that the 45% savings were not part of the sale. Origin Mattress said they were committed to working collaboratively with the ASA to address and rectify issues with the ad.

Assessment

Upheld

The ad included listings for the Hybrid Pro Mattress and the Hybrid Mattress. The listing for the Hybrid Pro Mattress included a struck-through price of £961 alongside a price of £529, and the text “Up to 45% off”. The listing for the Hybrid Mattress included the struck-through price of £579 alongside a price of £349, and the text, “Best Value 40% off”.

The ASA considered that consumers would understand that the struck-through prices were the prices at which the mattresses were usually sold at the time the ad appeared, and that the lower prices represented savings against those prices. We also considered that consumers would understand from the claims “Up to 45% off” and “Best Value 40% off” that they would be able to achieve a genuine saving of up to 45% and 40% against the usual selling price of the Hybrid Pro and Hybrid Mattress respectively. We requested for Origin Mattress to provide us with the pricing history for both products. They did not provide that information.

Because we did not receive any pricing history for the products from Origin Mattress, we could not determine whether the referenced higher prices were the usual selling prices. We, therefore, considered that the reference prices and savings claims had not been substantiated.

We acknowledged that Origin Mattress had made changes to their website to replace the struck-through reference prices with a “Similar Brands Avg Price”. We understood that price was calculated from working out the average selling prices of three products that Origin Mattress considered to be similar and was not the usual selling price of the product itself. Because we considered consumers would understand savings claims as part of a sale, such as “45% off sitewide”, to represent genuine savings against the usual selling prices, we considered that the changes were unlikely to comply with the Code when the “Similar Brands Avg Price” was used as the basis for the savings claims as part of a sale.

Because we had not seen evidence that the savings claims represented a genuine saving against the usual selling prices of the products, we concluded that the saving claims in the ad were misleading.

The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising), 3.7 (Substantiation) and 3.17 (Prices).

Action

The ad must not appear again in the form complained of. We told Origin Sleep UK Ltd t/a Origin Mattress to ensure that future savings claims did not mislead, and to ensure they substantiated savings claims against the usual selling price of their products.

CAP Code (Edition 12)

3.1     3.7     3.17    


More on