Ad description
Two poster ads for Rightmove seen on the London Underground:
a. The first poster, seen on 26 May 2019, included the text “Every second someone in the world gets married and every second someone contacts an estate agent about a home on Rightmove”.
b. The second poster, seen on 17 June 2019, included the text “Every second a bee flaps its wings 230 times and every second someone contacts an estate agent about a home on Rightmove”.
Issue
Three complainants challenged whether the claim “every second someone contacts an estate agent about a home on Rightmove” was misleading and could be substantiated.
Response
Rightmove Group Ltd said that in their published annual report of 2018, they referenced the total number of leads that were sent to their estate agents in that year. The leads consisted of email and phone enquiries made either electronically via the Rightmove website or apps or using one of the trackable phone numbers provided on each Rightmove property listing. They clarified that there were 31.5 million seconds in a year and that they received 42 million leads in a year which amounted to 1.3 enquiries per second.
Assessment
Not upheld
The ASA considered that consumers would understand the claim “every second someone contacts an estate agent about a home on Rightmove”, to mean that the number of times estate agents were contacted about homes listed on Rightmove was equivalent to once every second. Ads (a) and (b) featured the claim alongside similar claims such as “every second someone in the world gets married” and we considered that consumers would interpret them to be objective claims. We understood that the figure was based on the total number of enquiries estate agents received about Rightmove’s property listings in 2018. That equated to 1.3 enquiries every second over a year. We considered those figures were sufficiently robust as the basis for the advertising claim. We therefore concluded that the claim in ads (a) and (b) had been substantiated and was not misleading.
We investigated ads (a) and (b) under CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising) and 3.7 (Substantiation), but did not find them in breach.
Action
No further action necessary.
