Ad description
The website www.parcelforce.com, seen on 7 October 2017, featured claims that stated “Two Day Delivery - express48 Delivery within 2 working days …”.
Issue
The complainant, who used the advertised service and did not have their parcel delivered within two working days, challenged whether the claim “Two Day Delivery - express48 Delivery within 2 working days” was misleading and could be substantiated.
Response
Royal Mail Group t/a Parcelforce provided a table showing the success rate for “on-time” deliveries for their “Two Day Delivery - express48 Delivery” service for all areas of the UK excluding any depots serving outlying areas. They believed that this data supported the claim “Two Day Delivery - express48 Delivery within 2 working days”.
Assessment
Not upheld
The ASA considered that consumers would interpret the claim “Two Day Delivery - express48 Delivery within 2 working days” to mean that if they selected the “Two Day Delivery - express48” service, their parcel would be delivered to the recipient within 48 hours.
We referred to the data Parcelforce had provided and noted that from April 2017 to October 2017, under their “Two Day Delivery - express48” service”, they had a success rate of 97.24–98.37% when delivering parcels from all depots that did not serve outlying areas within the quoted timeframe of 48 hours. We considered that these were very strong statistics demonstrating that Parcelforce had delivered a significant number of packages within 48 hours over a sufficient period of time (six months).
Because of that, we considered Parcelforce had provided adequate evidence to support the claim “Two Day Delivery - express48 Delivery within 2 working days” and concluded that it had been substantiated and was not misleading.
We investigated the claim under CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 3.1 Marketing communications must not materially mislead or be likely to do so. (Misleading advertising) and 3.7 3.7 Before distributing or submitting a marketing communication for publication, marketers must hold documentary evidence to prove claims that consumers are likely to regard as objective and that are capable of objective substantiation. The ASA may regard claims as misleading in the absence of adequate substantiation. (Substantiation), but did not find it in breach.
Action
No further action required.
