Ad description
A website, www.kenyaairway.co.uk, seen on 23 November 2017, stated "Kenya Airways. The Pride of Africa .... About Kenya Airways. Kenya Airways is the national carrier for Kenya. It was founded in 1977 and its hub at [sic] Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, Nairobi. The Airline was privatized in 1996, it is now public private partnership [sic]. Kenya Airways is one of the best African flights. It is ranked fourth carrier in terms of seat capacity within Africa. It is member [sic] of SkyTeam and also member of African Airlines Associations. Kenya airways flies to Europe, Africa, Asia and North America destinations [sic]. Kenya Airways travels to 140 cities worldwide and 51 cities they operate direct flights [sic] ..."
Small print at the bottom of the page stated "We are UK based [sic] authorized dealers for Kenya Airways. Our website should not be considered a representation of the airline. It is to provide flight options and promote sales worldwide".
Issue
The complainant challenged whether the website misleadingly implied that it was the official site of Kenya Airways.
Response
kenyairway.co.uk did not respond to the ASA's enquiries.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA was concerned by kenyaairway.co.uk's lack of 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 response to our enquiries and told them to do so in future.
The ASA noted that the website featured an image very similar to the official Kenya Airways logo at the top of every page. Directly underneath the logo was the tagline "the Pride of Africa", which was the official tagline of Kenya Airways. The tagline was positioned in the same manner as it was positioned on the official Kenya Airways website. The website also featured similar colours and branding to the official Kenya Airways website and an image of a Kenya Airways plane. Furthermore, the home page stated "About Kenya Airways" followed by information about the airline, including "Kenya Airways is the national carrier for Kenya. It was founded in 19 77 and its hub at [sic] Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, Nairobi."
We considered that consumers were likely to understand, from the logo, tagline, branding and image of the Kenya Airways plane, as well as the "About Kenya Airways" section, that the website was the official website of Kenya Airways. While we acknowledged that there was small print at the bottom of the home page which stated "We are UK based authorized dealers for Kenya Airways. Our website should not be considered a representation of the airline. It is to provide flight options and promote sales worldwide", we considered that the text was likely to be overlooked by consumers and was not sufficient to counter the overall impression that the website was the official website of Kenya Airways. For those reasons, we concluded that the ad was likely to mislead consumers.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules
3.1
3.1
Marketing communications must not materially mislead or be likely to do so.
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.
and
3.5
3.5
Marketing communications must not materially mislead by omitting the identity of the marketer.
Some marketing communications must include the marketer's identity and contact details. Marketing communications that fall under the Database Practice or Employment sections of the Code must comply with the more detailed rules in those sections.
Marketers should note the law requires marketers to identify themselves in some marketing communications. Marketers should take legal advice.
(Misleading advertising) and
3.41
3.41
Marketing communications must not mislead the consumer about who manufactures the product.
(Imitation and denigration).
Action
The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told kenyaairway.co.uk to ensure that their website did not misleadingly imply that it was the official website of Kenya Airways.
