Ad description

A TV ad for the Health Lottery, seen on 15 May 2016, stated in the voice-over, "There's never been a better time to play the Health Lottery ... and with over £100 million handed out in prize money, there are more winners too." The ad featured a number of previous winners, one of whom said, "Lotto became too expensive with too many balls in the machine."

Issue

A viewer challenged whether the claim "with over £100 million handed out in prize money, there are more winners too", which they believed was a comparison between the number of Health Lottery and Lotto winners, was misleading and could be substantiated.

Response

The Health Lottery ELM Ltd said the “more winners” claim was a genuine reference to the fact that in the year following the Health Lottery’s launch, they increased the number of draws per week, from one to two. Later, they increased them again to four draws a week and in 2015, they introduced a further draw which meant they now had five draws per week. They explained that each additional draw had created more and more winners, and added that they had recently introduced raffle promotions linked to their lottery draws, which created yet more winners.

The Health Lottery said the claim was not intended to suggest that the Health Lottery had more winners than Lotto (also known as the National Lottery). They said that while the presenter appeared at two separate times in the ad, the totality of what she said in the ad was, “It’s easy to play, if you do it online the Health Lottery checks it for you … and with over £100 million handed out in prizes there are more winners too”.

The Health Lottery said that the claim challenged by the viewer appeared after a further testimonial and footage of other winners. As such, they believed the appearance of that material between the Lotto reference and the challenged claim was sufficient for viewers to draw a distinction between the two. In that regard, they did not believe viewers would see the challenged claim as a comparison to the number of Lotto winners.

The Health Lottery said that as of 25 February 2016, they had paid out £105,629,867 in prize money and there had been 5,803,970 prizes winners since the launch of the Health Lottery, and that this number was growing all the time. As such, they were satisfied that the claim was substantiated.

Clearcast supported the Health Lottery’s comments. Additionally, they felt that the challenged claim was likely to be interpreted as a statement that there had been more winners since the Health Lottery’s launch. Moreover, they said given that the proceeds from playing the Health Lottery benefited health charities, it could be argued that there were “more winners” in that regard. They did not believe the single reference to Lotto meant viewers were likely to see the claim as a comparison.

Assessment

Upheld

The ASA noted the ad featured testimonials from players and winners, as well as the presenter discussing the benefits of playing the Health Lottery. However, there were no other references or claims within the ad outside of that context, and therefore, we considered it was unclear from the ad as to what the presenter’s claim of “there are more winners too” referred.

In the absence of further information to help explain the context of that claim, we considered viewers were likely to interpret a claim which included the word “more” to be a comparison of some kind. In that context and given the reference to Lotto in a testimonial earlier on in the ad, we considered viewers were likely to understand the claim “there are more winners too” to be a comparison about the number of winners between the two lotteries. Because of that, the Health Lottery needed to hold relevant comparative data showing both the number of their winners and that of Lotto. However, we had not seen any evidence to demonstrate that the Health Lottery had had more winners than Lotto and therefore, we concluded the ad was misleading.

The ad breached BCAP Code rules  3.1 3.1 Advertisements must not materially mislead or be likely to do so.  (Misleading advertising),  3.9 3.9 Broadcasters must hold documentary evidence to prove claims that the audience is 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) and  3.33 3.33 Advertisements that include a comparison with an identifiable competitor must not mislead, or be likely to mislead, consumers about either the advertised product or service or the competing product or service.  (Comparisons with Identifiable Competitors).

Action

The ad must not be broadcast again in its current form. We told the Health Lottery ELM Ltd not to imply they had more winners than Lotto.

BCAP Code

3.1     3.33     3.9    


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