Background

Summary of Council decision:

Two issues were investigated, both of which were Upheld.

Ad description

The website www.reboundtherapy.org, seen in March 2016, that promoted a training course for practitioners of rebound therapy, a form of exercise therapy which uses trampolines. The home page of the website stated "Welcome to Rebound Therapy.org the UK based international body for Rebound Therapy". The sub-heading stated "Responsible for the development and delivery of the genuine, accredited and approved Rebound Therapy training course". A separate page headlined "Who can provide Rebound Therapy?" stated, "Anyone, regardless of profession, who has successfully completed the genuine Rebound Therapy training course run by a qualified and approved tutor has the right to use the phrase 'Rebound Therapy' to describe sessions they run for their clients/students, providing they agree to uphold the values of the Rebound Therapy Institute’s Constitution". Further text on this page stated "In order to ensure that the quality and integrity of Rebound Therapy is maintained, only those who are appropriately qualified and validated may legitimately use the phrase 'Rebound Therapy' to describe their work" and “any company or organisation wishing to use the title ‘rebound therapy’ to promote a product or service must contact ReboundTherapy.org (the UK body and international consultancy) to request permission”. The web page also listed seven providers of “approved Rebound Therapy staff training courses”. A third web page featured the text "'Rebound Therapy' is a trademark”. The course was referred to in several places on the website as the “genuine rebound therapy” course.

Issue

1. The Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP), who noted that a trademark for the term “rebound therapy" had been invalidated by the Intellectual Property Office (IPO), challenged whether the claims about the status of the term “Rebound Therapy” were misleading; and

2. They also believed the ad implied that the advertiser’s training course was mandatory for all rebound therapy practitioners and therefore challenged whether it was misleading because that was not the case.

Response

1. Rebound Therapy Ltd said the phrase had been trademarked since 1972, but acknowledged that the phrase was not a registered trademark in the UK anymore. They said, however, that it was a registered trademark in several other countries. They said the phrase originated from the founder of their organisation Mr Edward Anderson, and believed that it was widely acknowledged that the phrase belonged to Mr Anderson and referred to the specific “Eddy Anderson model” of exercise therapy. Finally, they offered to remove the phrase “any company or organisation wishing to use the title ‘rebound therapy’ to promote a product or service must contact ReboundTherapy.org (the UK body and international consultancy) to request permission”.

2. Rebound Therapy acknowledged that any physiotherapist, or indeed any member of the public, could provide rebound therapy, but argued that the ad did not state that the training course was mandatory for rebound therapy practitioners. They said that their course was the only approved and accredited rebound therapy course. It was approved by the Professional Development Board of the Association for Physical Education, was on OfQual’s register, was YMCA accredited and was the only trampoline training course recommended by Gymnastics UK. They said the website sought to prevent those who were not trained, knowledgeable or validated from setting up a training course as that would pose a risk to the safety of course participants. They pointed out that they had three CSP members working with them as course tutors. They said that insurance companies who provide liability insurance for rebound therapy practitioners wrote their insurance policies in consultation with Rebound Therapy Ltd, and believed that insurance companies would require practitioners to be validated by the advertiser.

Assessment

1. Upheld

The ASA noted that text on the web page “Who can provide Rebound Therapy?” stated "anyone, regardless of profession, who has successfully completed the genuine Rebound Therapy training course … has the right to use the phrase 'Rebound Therapy’... providing they agree to uphold the values of the Rebound Therapy Institute’s Constitution”, while further text stated “only those who are appropriately qualified and validated may legitimately use the phrase 'Rebound Therapy' to describe their work”. We considered visitors to the website would interpret those claims together to mean that those who had not completed the advertiser’s course were not permitted to use the term “rebound therapy”. Text on that web page further stated “any company or organisation wishing to use the title ‘rebound therapy’ to promote a product or service must contact ReboundTherapy.org (the UK body and international consultancy) to request permission”, which was an explicit statement that the term could only be used with the advertiser’s permission. Furthermore, text on a different web page contained the claim “Rebound Therapy is a trademark”. When viewed in the context of the claims mentioned above, we considered it would be interpreted to mean that the trademark was a registered trademark, and that the advertiser was warning practitioners against using the term. We noted the advertiser’s comment that the phrase was a registered trademark in several other countries. While the website, however, referred to international courses, it predominantly focused on courses that they ran throughout the UK, and we therefore considered that the claims concerning the term’s status would be understood to refer to its status within the UK. We concluded that, because the ad suggested that the term “rebound therapy” could only be used in the UK with the advertiser’s permission, when this was not the case, the ad was likely to mislead regarding the term’s status.

On that point, the ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules  3.1 3.1 Marketing communications must not materially mislead or be likely to do so.  (Misleading Advertising) and  3.33 3.33 Marketing communications that include a comparison with an identifiable competitor must not mislead, or be likely to mislead, the consumer about either the advertised product or the competing product.  (Comparisons with identifiable competitors).

2. Upheld

We noted that the home page contained the claim “responsible for the development and delivery of the genuine, accredited and approved Rebound Therapy training course". The description of the course as “the genuine Rebound therapy training course” was repeated in several places on the website. We considered that this implied that this was the only authorised and legitimate rebound therapy course for prospective practitioners, and that there were other courses offered by competitors that were not authorised or legitimate. We noted that the web page titled “Who can provide Rebound Therapy?” featured the text “Anyone, regardless of profession, who has completed the training course run by a validated tutor, may use the phrase to describe sessions they run for their students/clients”. Although the answer related to who could use the phrase “rebound therapy” as opposed to who could provide the service itself, in the context of the question “who can provide rebound therapy”, we considered visitors to the website would infer that the advertiser’s training course was mandatory for rebound therapy practitioners. Furthermore, the web page listed seven providers of “approved Rebound Therapy staff training courses”; when viewed in the context of the ad as a whole and, in particular, the headline “who can provide Rebound Therapy?”, we considered this would be understood to mean that those who did not enrol on any of the “approved” training courses, could not provide rebound therapy. We therefore concluded that, because the ad suggested that the training course was mandatory for all rebound therapy practitioners, when that was not the case, the ad was likely to mislead.

On that point, the ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules  3.1 3.1 Marketing communications must not materially mislead or be likely to do so.  (Misleading Advertising) and  3.33 3.33 Marketing communications that include a comparison with an identifiable competitor must not mislead, or be likely to mislead, the consumer about either the advertised product or the competing product.  (Comparisons with identifiable competitors).

Action

The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told Rebound Therapy Ltd to ensure that they did not suggest that the term “Rebound Therapy” could not be used without their permission or that their course was mandatory for prospective practitioners.

CAP Code (Edition 12)

3.1     3.33    


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