Ad description
A tweet from claims management company Assured Legal Services, seen on 3 February 2017, which said "£223.7 MILLION on compensation for PPI paid in ONE MONTH... still don't want to check? Message us today! #ppi #compensation #financialfriend." The tweet included an image with text that said "£223.7m was paid in October 2016".
Issue
Lloyds Banking Group, who said the ad implied that Assured Legal Services had obtained £223.7m in PPI compensation for their customers in October 2016, challenged whether the ad was misleading.
Response
Thomson Legal t/a Assured Legal Services said the tweet was based on evidence provided by the Financial Conduct Authority which showed that a total of £223.7m was paid out in PPI compensation by UK financial institutions in October 2016.
Assessment
Not upheld
The ASA considered that while most consumers would have some knowledge about PPI compensation and the scale of PPI mis-selling, it was unlikely that they would have a strong understanding of the amount of compensation paid out across the industry each month.
The tweet did not state whether the amount paid out in PPI compensation was across the financial services industry or just that obtained by Assured Legal Services and passed on to their customers. However, in spite of the limited understanding most consumers would have regarding how much PPI compensation was paid out in 2016, we considered consumers would interpret the claim to mean that £223.7m was paid out across the financial services industry, because it was such a large amount to have been paid in a one-month period.
Because that figure had been obtained from a credible source, we concluded the ad did not breach the code.
We investigated under CAP Code (Edition 12) rules
3.1
3.1
Marketing communications must not materially mislead or be likely to do so.
and
3.3
3.3
Marketing communications must not mislead the consumer by omitting material information. They must not mislead by hiding material information or presenting it in an unclear, unintelligible, ambiguous or untimely manner.
Material information is information that the consumer needs to make informed decisions in relation to a product. Whether the omission or presentation of material information is likely to mislead the consumer depends on the context, the medium and, if the medium of the marketing communication is constrained by time or space, the measures that the marketer takes to make that information available to the consumer by other means.
(Misleading advertising) but did not find it in breach
Action
No further action necessary.
