Ad description
Two content discovery network ads seen on a national newspaper website at the bottom of a news article on 21 November 2022:
a. The first ad, stated “Killer New EVs With Longest Range And Most Power” accompanied with a picture featuring a Eureka Gold Lucid Air Dream Edition. Beneath the text there were the terms “NEW ELECTRIC CARS" "SEARCH ADS" "Sponsored”.
The link led to a website, https://gosearches.net, which consisted of a series of images of vehicles accompanied by the headings “2023 EV Crossover Offers”, “New 2022 SUV Phev Prices”, “New 2022 Electric Vehicle Prices”, “2022 Compact Electric Sedans”, “2023 EV Compact SUV”, “2023 Midsize EV Crossovers” and “2023 EB Crossover Offers”. The links ultimately linked through to a Yahoo search results listing a number of paid-for ads for car retailer websites.
b. The second ad stated “Canary Islands Holiday Packages Are Almost Being Given Away” accompanied with a stock photo of Cala Tarida beach, Ibiza. Beneath the text there were the terms “HOLIDAY PACKAGES ?SEARCH ADS ?Sponsored”.
The link led to a website, https://topsearchesnow.com, which consisted of a series of scenic images accompanied by the headings “Ibiza Holiday Packages”, “Fuerteventura Holiday Packages”, “Tenerife Holidays Packages”, and “Gran Canaria Holiday Packages”. The links ultimately linked through to a number of Yahoo search results listing a number of paid-for ads of travel agency websites.
Issue
The ASA challenged whether the claims “Killer New EVs With Longest Range And Most Power” and “Canary Islands Holiday Packages Are Almost Being Given Away” were misleading regarding the nature of the content that the ads linked through to and the ads falsely implied that the marketer was acting for purposes outside its business.
Response
Person(s) Unknown t/a Nimble did not respond to the ASA’s enquiries.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA was concerned by Person(s) Unknown t/a Nimble’s lack of response and apparent disregard for the Code as well as their failure to provide their full name and geographical business address, which were in breach of CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 1.7 (Unreasonable delay) and 1.7.1 (Compliance). We reminded them of their responsibility to provide a response to our enquiries without delay and told them to do so in the future.
We considered consumers would understand the claim in ad (a) “Killer New EVs With Longest Range And Most Power” to mean that the ad linked directly through to information or an article regarding the best new electric vehicles with the longest range and power, or as leading directly to a car retailer website where such vehicles were sold.
We considered that the claim in ad (b) “Canary Islands Holiday Packages Are Almost Being Given Away” would be understood to mean that the ads linked directly to information or an article about significantly discounted holiday packages to the Canary Islands, or as leading directly to a travel agency where such discounted packages were sold.
We acknowledged that both ads included the label “SEARCH ADS” in small print beneath the claims. However, we did not consider that the meaning of that label was likely to be widely understood by consumers, and therefore did not counteract the overall impression of the ads.
When clicked on, ad (a) took consumers to a landing page that featured a series of images of vehicles accompanied by the subheadings “2023 EV Crossover Offers”, “New 2022 SUV Phev Prices”, “New 2022 Electric Vehicle Prices”, “2022 Compact Electric Sedans”, “2023 EV Compact SUV”, “2023 Midsize EV Crossovers” and “2023 EB Crossover Offers”. Ad (b) took consumers to a landing page which featured a series of scenic images with the headings “Ibiza Holiday Packages”, “Fuerteventura Holiday Packages”, “Tenerife Holidays Packages” and “Gran Canaria Holiday Packages” beneath each image. The images used did not correspond to the destinations referenced under each subheading. The landing pages did not contain any information or an article about the best new electric vehicles with the longest range and power or discounted holiday packages to the Canary Islands. The subheadings of each landing page linked through to Yahoo searches of the various subheadings that only featured results of paid-for ads for different car retailers or travel agency websites respectively.
We noted that organic searches of the subheadings used in the landing pages did not produce the same Yahoo search results. Furthermore, there was no indication that the retailers that appeared in the search results sold the best new electric vehicles with the longest range and power or that the holiday packages were at a significantly lower price.
We understood that the landing pages - https://gosearches.net/ for ad (a) and https://topsearchesnow.com for ad (b) - were ‘parked domain’ websites set up by Nimble. We understood that domain parking was the registration of an Internet domain name without that domain being associated with services such as e-mail or a website. Domain parking could be done for various reasons, including reserving the domain name for future development or to protect the domain name from use by others. Domain parking could also be monetised by operating a single-page website which hosted ads, as was the case here. Ads which linked through to the parked domain website would then generate income from the host of the parked domain through the impressions it collected.
The ads therefore misleadingly implied that when clicked on, consumers would find information or a direct link to purchase the best new electric vehicles with the longest range and power or significantly discounted holidays, when that was not the case. We considered that the nature of the content the ads linked through to, particularly that they linked only to paid-for search results, was likely to have a significant impact on whether or not consumers chose to engage with them. We therefore considered that the nature of the content that the ads linked through to should have been made clear, and because they did not do so we concluded the ads were misleading.
The ads breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 2.3 (Recognition of marketing communications) and 3.1 (Misleading advertising).
Action
The ads must not appear again in the form complained about. We told Person(s) Unknown t/a Nimble to ensure that their ads did not mislead consumers as to the nature of the content they would receive if they engaged with them, for example by using phrases such as “Killer New EVs With Longest Range And Most Power” or “Holiday Packages Are Almost Being Given Away” if the ad did not directly link through to information, an article or a link to purchase. Ads for parked domain sites should make clear if the only content consumers would be served with by clicking on the ad would be more ads or links to search results. We referred the matter to CAP’s compliance team.
