Background
Summary of Council decision:
Two issues were investigated, both of which were Upheld.
Ad description
A website for Vodafone, www.vodafone.co.uk, seen in November and December 2024, featured product listings for two SIM cards:
a. The listing for the Unlimited Plus SIM stated “Save £240. Monthly £23. Offer ends 19 December”.
b. The listing for the Unlimited Max SIM stated “Black Friday: Save £312. Monthly £23. Offer ends 2 December”.
c. The listing, which was a previous version of ad (a), stated “Unlimited Plus. Black Friday. Save £312. Monthly £20. Offer ends 02 December”.
d. The listing, which was a previous version of ad (b), stated “Unlimited Max. 6 months half price. Monthly £18. £36pm after 6 months. Offer ends 28 November”.
Issue
EE challenged whether:
- the savings claims in ads (a) and (b) were misleading; and
- ads (c) and (d) were misleading because the products did not return to the price against which the saving was being claimed, once the promotion ended.
Response
1. Vodafone Ltd said that, during the full 149-day promotional period from September to January, the Unlimited Plus was on offer for 33% of the time, while the Unlimited Max was on offer for 49% of the time. They said the reference price for the product in ad (a) was £33 while the reference price for the product in ad (b) was £36. Those were the prices against which the savings claims of £240 in ad (a) and £312 in ad (b) were made against. However, for both products, they acknowledged that the reference price was not the immediately preceding price. That was because both products had previously been on offer at a discounted price in a different promotion.
2. Vodafone acknowledged that the promotion for the Unlimited Plus SIM in ad (a) was run back-to-back with the Black Friday promotion in ad (c). They also acknowledged that the promotion for the Unlimited Plus Max SIM in ad (b) was run back-to-back with the Black Friday promotion in ad (d). They therefore acknowledged the products in ads (c) and (d) did not return to the price against which the savings were being claimed once the promotions ended.
Vodafone acknowledged that CAP guidance stated prices should have been reverted to the reference price, before they were discounted again.
Assessment
1. Upheld
The ASA considered consumers would understand from the claim “Save £240” in ad (a) and “Save £312” in ad (b) that the promotions represented genuine savings against the prices at which the products were usually sold at the time the ads appeared. The Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI) Guidance For Traders on Pricing Practices offered practical advice to traders on consumer protection laws and associated practices. While we noted that the guidance provided a set of principles rather than statutory rules, we took the Guidance into account when making our assessment.
The Guidance stated that it was important that price comparisons were genuine. Comparing a current price to a higher one when it was not the last price the product was sold at, because there had been intervening prices, was an example given in the Guidance of a price comparison that might not be genuine.
Both ads were for promotions that ended in December. We understood that the quoted saving of £240 for the Unlimited Plus SIM in ad (a) was based on a price of £33 a month, which had been charged from 4 September to 31 October. However, we understood £33 wasn’t the immediately preceding price of the product because there had been two intervening prices, one for a Black Friday sale and another for a November sale. We also acknowledged that the quoted saving of £312 for the Unlimited Max SIM in ad (b) was similarly based on a price of £36 a month which had been charged from 4 September to 31 October. However, we once again understood that was not the immediately preceding price of the product, with the previous price including a six-month half price promotion from 1 to 28 November.
Because of that, we considered the quoted savings claims for both products had not been made against the immediately preceding prices at which the products were sold at when the ads appeared. Consequently, that meant the quoted saving of £240 in ad (a) and £312 in ad (b) were not genuine. Because we had not seen evidence that the savings claim in both ads represented a genuine saving, we concluded that the ads were misleading.
On that point, the ads breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising) and 3.17 (Prices)
2. Upheld
Ad (c) was a Black Friday promotion for the Unlimited Plus SIM for a price of £20 a month, which stated “offer ends 2 December”, whilst ad (d) was a six-month half price promotion for the Unlimited Max SIM for a price of £18 a month, which stated “offer ends 28 November”. We considered consumers would understand that when a promotion reached its end date, the advertised product would revert to its standard, non-promotional price.
We considered consumers would understand that they only had until the end date of each promotion to get a discount on each product before they reverted back to their non-promotional prices, which was £33 a month for the Unlimited Plus SIM and £36 a month for the Unlimited Max SIM. However, we understood that when the promotions for the Unlimited Plus SIM in ad (c) and for the Unlimited Max SIM in ad (d) ended, another promotion for each product had begun immediately. Those promotions were the ones seen in ads (a) and (b). That meant the products did not revert back to the non-promotional prices of £33 and £36 a month.
Because the products in both ads did not return to the prices against which the savings were being claimed once the promotions ended, we concluded that the ads were misleading.
On that point, the ads breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising) and 3.17 (Prices).
Action
The ads must not appear again in the forms complained of. We told Vodafone Ltd to ensure that future savings claims did not mislead and to ensure products returned to the price against which the saving was being claimed, once a promotion ended.
