Ad description
A paid-for Facebook ad and a website for Haven, a holiday company, seen on 22 December 2024.
a. The paid-for Facebook ad featured an image of a swimming pool and a caravan holiday park. A caption on the post stated, “Have a blast on your next holiday with Haven. Sand, sea and buckets of fun await”. Text on the image stated, “Penally Court 4 nights from £55*”. Small print at the bottom of the ad stated, “*Price based on a Hideaway break in selected grades outside of school holidays”. The ad featured a click through link to ad (b).
b. The website www.haven.com featured text, which stated, “Accommodation at Penally Court. Caravans 4 nights from £59”.
Issue
The complainant, who was unable to find dates at the advertised prices, challenged whether the claims “4 nights from £55” in ad (a) and “4 nights from £59” in ad (b) were misleading.
Response
Haven Leisure Ltd said that at the time the ad was seen, there should have been five dates available for a ‘Hideaway break’ in 2025 at the advertised price points. Instead, only one break was available to book because two had sold out and two had been incorrectly priced too high. They explained that there was a lower availability of caravans at the Penally Court Holiday Park compared to their other parks, which they had not taken into account when making the price claim. That meant the advertised price points for Penally Court, in contrast to other Haven caravan parks, could have sold out after only one booking.
Haven Leisure said that they had removed the price claims for Penally Court and would ensure promotional prices were dynamically updated in the future.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA considered that consumers would have understood the claim in ad (a) “Penally Court 4 nights from £55” to mean that a significant proportion of 4-night breaks at that holiday park would have been available to book from £55. We further considered those who saw the claim in ad (b) “4 nights from £59” would have understood that there were a significant proportion of breaks which started from that price. It was not clear why the prices differed between the ads.
We considered consumers who viewed the price claim in ad (a), before they clicked through to ad (b) and viewed a different price claim, would have likely been unsure of the specifics of the promotional offer. Notwithstanding the “from” price claim discrepancy between the ads, we still expected Haven Leisure to hold adequate evidence to substantiate those price claims. Because small print in ad (a) stated “Price based on a Hideaway break in selected grades outside of school holidays”, we also considered consumers would have expected to find the breaks available at the “from” prices across a range of dates outside of school holidays.
We understood that, at the time the ads appeared, only one break was available to book at one of the advertised price points. We considered that meant there was not a significant number of breaks available at either of the price claims, plus they were not available across a range of dates. We acknowledged that was due to both Penally Court being a small caravan park and because of internal pricing errors. However, because only a small proportion of the available breaks were available at that price, which did not cover a suitable range of dates, we concluded that the claims “4 nights from £55” and “4 nights from £59” were misleading and could not be substantiated.
The ads breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising), 3.7 (Substantiation), 3.17 and 3.22 (Prices).
Action
The ads must not appear again in the form complained of. We told Haven Leisure Ltd to ensure that a significant proportion of breaks were available at the advertised price, and across a range of dates, when using “from” price claims in the future.
