Background
This Ruling forms part of a wider piece of work on promotional offers on retirement properties, identified for investigation following intelligence gathered by the ASA. See also related rulings published on 13 November 2024.
Ad description
A national newspaper ad for Churchill Retirement Living, a retirement property company, published on 24 April 2024, included text that stated, “RETIREMENT APARTMENTS FOR SALE”. Further text stated, “For a limited time only receive up to £20,000 Cashback* or select a Moving Package worth thousands* - It’s your choice”. Small text at the bottom of the ad stated, “*T&Cs apply, visit our website for more information”.
Issue
The ASA challenged whether the conditions of the promotion had been made sufficiently clear.
Response
Churchill Retirement Living Ltd said that they had taken care to ensure the ad made clear that the offer was time related and that there was a cap of the monetary incentive. It clearly stated that terms and conditions applied, and that they could be found on the website. Given the relatively small size of the advert, they did not believe it was realistic to have the full terms and conditions within the ad itself. They took care to ensure that the full terms and conditions were clear and easily accessible from the homepage of the website for the duration of the campaign.
Although their customers were seniors, their experience was that they had good access to the internet – either directly or with the help of family and friends – and that potential customers considering a major purchase such as this would be capable of accessing the website to read the information. Nevertheless, should any potential customers have been without internet access, a phone number was provided on the ad which enabled customers to speak to a member of their team to find out more, or request information to be sent to them by post.
The cashback offered in the promotion was for 3% of the purchase price, up to a maximum of £20,000. They said they had a number of properties available in the promotion whereby 3% of the purchase price would have exceeded £20,000, and that was why the cashback was capped at that amount.
Assessment
Upheld
The CAP Code stated that all marketing communications or other material referring to promotions must communicate all applicable significant conditions or information where the omission of such conditions or information was likely to mislead, including a prominent closing date if applicable.
The ASA considered consumers would understand from the claim “For a limited time only receive up to £20,00 Cashback* or select a Moving Package worth thousands*” that the promotion was time limited.We understood that to be eligible for either the cashback or the moving package, consumers had to have completed the purchase of the property by 21 June 2024. That information was not specified in the ad. We considered that the duration of the promotional period and the speed at which it was necessary to complete the sale of the property was information likely to influence consumers’ understanding of and decisions about the promotion. They were therefore significant conditions which should have been stated prominently in the ad.
We also understood that there were further terms and conditions to the promotion, including that the cashback was calculated at 3% of the purchase price up to a maximum of £20,000, the offer was only available on selected apartments at participating developments and it only applied to new properties. We considered those were significant conditions that were likely to affect a consumer’s understanding of the promotion and their decision to participate, and they should also have been stated prominently in the ad.We considered that the omission of those significant conditions was likely to mislead. We acknowledged that the asterisks linked to small text at the bottom of the ad that stated, “*T&Cs apply, visit our website for more information” and the ad included a web address. However, the address provided was not specific to where the terms and conditions could be found on the website. In any case, we considered the ad was not sufficiently limited by time or space to justify their omission.
We concluded that because the ad had omitted significant conditions, including a prominent closing date, the promotion breached the Code.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 8.17, 8.17.1, 8.17.4 and 8.17.4.a (Promotional marketing).
Action
The ad must not appear again in the form complained of. We told Churchill Retirement Living Ltd to ensure that their future promotions communicated all applicable significant conditions or information, including a prominent closing date, where the omission of such information was likely to mislead consumers.
