Ad description
A regional press ad for a waste disposal unit stated "Have a premium quality waste-disposal unit professionally-fitted under your sink, with a 2 year warranty ... All your food waste. No yukkiness. It all goes down to the sewer. MEGA environmentally-friendly disposal of all organic matter".
Issue
The complainant challenged whether the claim "MEGA environmentally-friendly disposal of all organic matter" was misleading and could be substantiated.
Response
iPlumb (Bristol) Ltd did not respond to the ASA's enquiries.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA was concerned by iPlumb (Bristol) Ltd's lack of substantive response and apparent disregard for the Code, which was a breach of CAP Code rule 1.7 1.7 Any unreasonable delay in responding to the ASA's enquiries will normally be considered a breach of the Code. (Unreasonable delay). We reminded them of their responsibility to provide a substantive response to our enquiries and told them to do so in future.
We considered that consumers would understand the claim "MEGA environmentally-friendly disposal of all organic matter" to mean that use of the product, taking into account its full life cycle from manufacture to disposal, resulted in minimal damage to the environment. In the absence of documentary evidence to that effect, we concluded that the claim had not been substantiated and was misleading.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 3.1 Marketing communications must not materially mislead or be likely to do so. (Misleading advertising), 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) and 11.1 11.1 The basis of environmental claims must be clear. Unqualified claims could mislead if they omit significant information. and 11.3 11.3 Absolute claims must be supported by a high level of substantiation. Comparative claims such as "greener" or "friendlier" can be justified, for example, if the advertised product provides a total environmental benefit over that of the marketer's previous product or competitor products and the basis of the comparison is clear. (Environmental claims).
Action
The ad must not appear again in its current form. We referred the matter to CAP's Compliance team.
