Ad description
A TV ad for McDonald’s, and two claims in the My McDonald’s app, advertising their “£5 Meal Deal” and “The Feed the Family Offer”:
a. The TV ad, seen on 12 October 2024, featured a voice-over which stated, “The new £5 Meal Deal from McDonalds. Cheeseburger or Mayo Chicken, fries, four Chicken McNuggets, and a drink. For – guess what? That’s right – £5. It’s not called the £5 Meal Deal for nothing”. Images of each mentioned food item appeared on the screen. The image of Chicken McNuggets appeared with the text “BONUS SIDE”.
Small on-screen text stated, “From 11am. Not available on delivery. Participating restaurants. Deal includes a Mayo Chicken or Cheeseburger, 4 Chicken McNuggets, Medium Fries and a Medium carbonated drink. Drink upgrade fees apply. Please check kiosk or ask in-restaurant for details. Subject to availability.”
b. The first claim in the My McDonald’s app, for the “£5 Meal Deal”, seen on 12 October 2024, stated “Five Pound Meal Deal £5.00” above a list of food items: “Cheeseburger”; “Medium Fries”; and “Medium Sprite Zero Sugar”. Text underneath stated “Bonus side” with “4 Chicken McNuggets” listed.
c. The second claim in the My McDonald’s app, for the “Feed the Family Offer”, seen on 23 November 2024, featured headline text stating “The Feed the Family Deal for £14.99,” with smaller text above that stated “Delivery Only”. Below the headline, text stated “Choose two core burgers & two small burgers with two medium fries & two small fries”. Additional text underneath stated “Available only for McDelivery” followed by a button to “Add to McDelivery Order”.
Issue
The ASA received two complaints:
1. One complainant, who understood that the base items included in the “£5 Meal Deal” cost less than £5, challenged whether the “bonus side” claim in ads (a) and (b) misleadingly, implied the Chicken McNuggets were free.
2. One complainant challenged whether the price statement in ad (c) was misleading, because they understood the price of £14.99 did not include delivery and service fees.
Response
1. McDonald's Restaurants Ltd t/a McDonald's said that if purchased separately, the mean cost of the four items across the UK would be £6.78. They explained that four Chicken McNuggets were not sold separately as a menu item, so the cost was calculated using the mean price of six Chicken McNuggets at £4.19, equating to £2.79 for four.
They stated that consumers generally understood the term “meal deal” to refer to a main, a drink and a side or snack. Additionally, meal offerings at McDonald's, such as the “Extra Value Meal” and the “Saver Meal,” usually consisted of three items. The “£5 Meal Deal”, however, included an extra side, making it a four-item bundle.
They referred to the Collins English Dictionary definition of “bonus” as “something good that you get in addition to something else, and which you would not usually expect”. They used the word “bonus” to indicate the unexpected second side in the meal deal bundle. Since meal deals typically consisted of three items, consumers would not expect four Chicken McNuggets, especially as they were not sold separately.
Both ads described the new £5 bundle as having four items. Ad (a) included text at the bottom of the screen detailing the included products, with no implication that any were offered for free or separately outside the bundle. In ad (b), consumers went through four app pages showing the four-item bundle before completing the order, with no indication of free or separate items. They shared screenshots of each page to illustrate this. A customer could not complete the order without selecting the fourth constituent of the bundle, and it was only at this stage that the “Bonus side” claim was made in reference to the four Chicken McNuggets.
Clearcast stated that they understood the “£5 meal deal” was a new menu option where customers could get a cheeseburger or Mayo chicken, medium fries, a medium soft drink and a side of four McChicken nuggets for £5 at participating restaurants. They noted that the “bonus side” of four Chicken McNuggets was not sold as a standalone item in the United Kingdom. Therefore, they considered that calling it a “bonus side” was acceptable, as customers could not purchase it individually.
2. McDonald's said delivery charges varied and could not be calculated in advance, due to certain special offers and the customer’s address. The app therefore clarified at each ordering stage that delivery charges applied. After clicking the "Feed the Family Deal" offer on the app’s home page, app users were taken to ad (c). That page featured a "View terms of this offer" hyperlink, which took users to a page with the offer’s full terms and conditions. Those included the text "Delivery price uplift and fees apply". They provided a screenshot of the app’s basket page with the offer selected, showing estimated delivery charges based on the customer's address. The final delivery charge was confirmed before checkout, with text stating "The subtotal above does not include delivery fees. Additional taxes and fees may apply during checkout for delivery orders".
They believed their approach was consistent with that taken across all areas of retail. The average consumer expected and understood that delivery charges may be payable on delivery orders, and that those costs may vary and could only be calculated during the checkout process.
McDonald's agreed to amend the ad and implement the necessary changes to ensure it complied with the Code.
Assessment
1. Not upheld
Ad (a) featured a voice-over which stated, "The new £5 meal deal from McDonald's: Cheeseburger or Mayo Chicken, fries, four Chicken McNuggets, and a drink. For […] £5." The ad included small text listing the items included in the meal deal. Towards the end of the ad, the Chicken McNuggets were referred to as a "bonus side" in text which appeared briefly alongside a small image on-screen. Based on the relative prominence and order in which the claims and imagery were presented, the ASA considered that viewers would understand that the Meal Deal included all four items as part of the bundled meal, and that its price took account of the McNuggets. They would understand that the claim “bonus side” related to the Meal Deal including two sides instead of one and would not expect that the McNuggets were free.
We also considered the "bonus side" claim within the context of ad (b) and the overall customer journey. At the onset of the purchasing process, consumers selected the Meal Deal from a list of “Sharers & Bundles”. Next to the “Five Pound Meal Deal” name, an image showed a glass of Coca-Cola, medium fries, four Chicken McNuggets and a dip, underneath which was a plus sign, followed by an image of a Cheeseburger the word “or” and an image of a Mayo Chicken burger. We considered consumers would understand from the “Meal Deal” name alongside that imagery that the Meal Deal included all four items as part of the bundled meal, and that its price took account of the McNuggets as a second side, rather than as an additional, free item.
Having understood the Meal Deal price as inclusive of all four items, we considered a minority of consumers may have found the additional references to the Chicken McNuggets in both ads as a “bonus side” to be confusing, as in many contexts “bonus” had the same meaning as “free”. The claim potentially implied that purchasers were only paying for the cost of the other three items, which were available as a Medium Cheeseburger (or Mayo Chicken) Saver Meal for £3.99. However, we noted that consumers who wished to buy Chicken Nuggets in addition to a Saver Meal would pay more than £5, and would not be able to purchase only four McNuggets as they were not sold as a separate item. The Meal Deal therefore still offered a saving; and the overall cost of the deal was still advantageous. We therefore considered the “bonus side” claim was not likely to have caused consumers to make a transactional decision they would not have otherwise made.
On that basis, we concluded that the “bonus side” claims in ads (a) and (b) were not misleading.
On that point, we investigated ad (a) under BCAP Code rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising), 3.25, 3.25.2 and 3.26 ('Free' claims), but did not find it in breach.
On that point, we investigated ad (b) under CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising), 3.24, 3.24.2 and 3.25 (Free), but did not find it in breach.
2. Upheld
The CAP Code required that quoted prices must include non-optional fees that applied to most buyers. If the fee could not be calculated in advance, the marketing communication must make clear it was excluded from the price and state how it was calculated. Additionally, marketing communications that stated prices must also state applicable delivery charges or, if those could not reasonably be calculated in advance, state that such charges were payable. We considered that information about fees and delivery costs was likely to impact consumers’ decisions about whether to seek out more information about an offer and whether to make a purchase.
The ad stated that the “Feed the Family Deal” cost £14.99 and included three separate statements that the offer was only available for delivery. While the hyperlinked text “View terms of this offer” took app users to a page which stated “Delivery price uplift and fees apply”, that information was not stated in the initial ad. Additionally it did not make clear how the costs of the service fees were calculated. App users were not presented with the statement that the subtotal did not include delivery fees and that additional fees may apply at checkout until they had made their selections of the items available in the “Feed the Family Deal”. They then had to click on a “Choose Payment” button before reaching a page where the costs of the service fee and delivery were stated.
We welcomed McDonald’s willingness to make changes to their advertising. However, we considered that in order for consumers to make an informed transactional decision about whether or not to purchase the deal, the ad – the initial “Feed the Family Deal” app page – should have made it clear that a service fee was excluded from the quoted price, and stated how that fee was calculated. It should also have stated that a delivery charge was payable. Because ad (c) did not make clear that the quoted price of £14.99 excluded non-optional fees and did not explain how these fees were calculated, and because it also did not state that a delivery fee applied, we concluded that it breached the Code.
On that point, the ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising) and 3.18, 3.19 and 3.20 (Prices).
