Background
Summary of Council decision:
Two issues were investigated, of which one was Upheld and the other Not upheld.
Ad description
Three ads for Laybuy, a ‘buy now pay later’ (BNPL) credit provider:
a. An advertorial, seen on www.refinery29.com, a lifestyle website for women, on 1 June 2021 titled “5 R29 Staffers reveal Their Biggest Financial Wellness Worry”. Text above the title stated “LAYBUY PROMO FEATURE”. Text in the introduction of the piece stated “… according to new statistics provided by payment provider Laybuy, women would rather discuss death than finances, and only 12% feel comfortable enough to ask for help when they’re struggling with it”. A later section stated “Often, the hardest part is admitting we might be struggling in the first place. A great first step is taking Laybuy’s five-minute Financial Health Check, which allows you to assess how you are coping financially…” and included a link to the Laybuy quiz.
The ad contained a series of slides in which writers from Refinery29 wrote about their biggest financial concerns. At the end of the last slide, text stated “As you can tell from our staffers’ stories, financial concerns affect everyone in different ways, from the niggling doubts to the huge worries that impact us daily … Remember, a huge step in tackling your financial wellness begins with finding out where yours stands. Click here to take Laybuy’s all-new five-minute Financial Health Check, to access tips and advice, and for more information about the Laybuy #MasterYourMoney Campaign.”
b. An Instagram post on Laura Whitmore’s page, seen on 27 May 2021, stated, “AD/ I am proud to be supporting @Laybuy.uk on their #masteryourmoney campaign. We hope this campaign will encourage women to talk about their financial wellness and remove the stigma around money concerns. Discover your financial health in under 5 minutes by visiting https://www.laybuy.com/uk/master-your-money @thisgirltalksmoney @Laybuy.uk #Masteryourmoney”.
c. An Instagram post on Ellie Austin-Williams’ page, @thisgirltalksmoney, seen on 27 May 2021, stated that “… four out of five Gen Z and Millennial women in the UK have financial concerns, with a quarter worrying about their finances daily … [and] the average female under 40 in the UK only has half the savings of her male equivalent, with 1 in 5 saying they have no savings, according to new research by @laybuy.uk, the payment provider championing responsibility in the sector”.
Issue
The ASA received two complaints. A member of the public challenged whether ad (a) breached the Code, and the campaign group Go Fund Yourself challenged whether ads (b) and (c) breached the Code, because they:
1. did not make sufficiently clear that the products offered by Laybuy were a form of credit; and
2. irresponsibly portrayed the service as a solution to financial concerns.
Response
1. & 2. Laybuy Holdings (UK) Ltd said that their ‘Master Your Money’ campaign had been designed to educate people to have better financial habits. They said that the financial health check quiz linked to in the ads was a standalone resource, which had been designed to be distinct and separate from their ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ (BNPL) product, and had contained no clickable links to the BNPL product or its sign-up process.
Laybuy said that the advertorial did not claim that their services were a solution to financial concerns discussed in the article. They said it had instead highlighted third-party consumer research (an omnibus poll carried out by Opinium of a demographically representative sample of 5,013 UK adults) relating to the financial concerns and wellness of UK females, before encouraging readers to take the financial health check quiz.
Laybuy said that the financial health check quiz had been developed by Ellie Austin Williams, a third-party consumer finance expert and certified financial coach, acting in her role as an independent ‘women’s money mentor’ as part of the wider ‘Master Your Money’ campaign. They said that their credit products had been mentioned once within the financial health check, but only in the context of discussing money management, and had been clearly referenced as a credit product.
They highlighted sections of text from the financial health check they believed demonstrated this, including “Only borrow what you can repay”, “Credit can be a helpful tool for managing your money”, “‘you can build a good credit rating by using payment options such as Laybuy UK responsibly. But before you decide to pay for any products using credit, ask yourself whether you are certain that you will meet all your future payments with no trouble and only press purchase if the answer is a definitive yes’, and ‘If you choose to spread out the cost of a purchase, ensure your provider uses scheduled payments - as Laybuy does - so that you know what payments are upcoming and when”.
Responding to the concerns about ads (b) and (c) which featured Laura Whitmore and Ellie Austin Williams, Laybuy said that they did not believe either had claimed that their services were a solution to financial concerns. They said that Ms Whitmore’s post had encouraged people to talk more about their finances, and recommended the financial health check quiz, developed by Ms Williams, to support this aim.
Laybuy said that neither post had encouraged consumers to open a Laybuy account, or had contained any commercial or product-focused messaging.
Assessment
1. Upheld
The CAP Code required that offers of financial products must be set out in a way that allowed them to be understood easily by the audience being addressed. It also required that marketers ensure that they did not take advantage of consumers' inexperience or credulity, and that marketing communications state the nature of the contract being offered, any limitation, expense, penalty or charge, and the terms of withdrawal. The Code also stated that marketing communications must not mislead the consumer by omitting material information, or by hiding material information or presenting it in an unclear, unintelligible, ambiguous or untimely manner.
The ASA understood that Laybuy provided a service which allowed consumers to make delayed, interest free payments for products from selected retailers. We understood that Laybuy’s BNPL product operated as a credit agreement service, and users were subject to potential penalties if they failed to make payments on time. We considered that BNPL payment methods were less familiar to consumers than more traditional forms of credit, such as credit cards, and they therefore may be less aware that they were a type of debt. We considered that, for delayed payment services, the nature of the service as a form of credit was material information likely to affect a consumer’s decision to use the product.
We acknowledged that Laybuy’s ‘Master Your Money’ campaign was itself separate from their BNPL product, and accepted that ad (a) contained no direct clickable links that took consumers to the BNPL product or its sign-up process. We also accepted that ads (b) and (c) had not encouraged consumers to open a Laybuy account. We considered, however, that all three ads were a general promotion of Laybuy as an organisation and, by extension, the BNPL product that was the core of their business model, and the only product that Laybuy offered to consumers.
We assessed whether the ads made clear the nature of the service as a form of credit. Ad (a) included text that stated ‘LAYBUY PROMO FEATURE’ above the main headline, along with the Laybuy logo. However, we considered that the text was significantly smaller than the headline, and did not itself explain who Laybuy were, or what their product was. Text in the introduction of ad (a) referred to Laybuy as a ‘payment provider’. We did not consider that made it sufficiently clear to consumers that Laybuy’s product was a BNPL service, or that their product was a form of credit.
The only other direct mention of Laybuy in the introductory page stated, “‘A great first step is taking Laybuy’s five-minute Financial Health Check”. Consumers were again directed to click a link to the Financial Health Quiz at the end of the advertorials slide show. We considered the ad directed consumers to the Laybuy website without clearly stating that they offered a BNPL service, and that it was a form of credit.
Ads (b) and (c) were both clearly labelled as paid partnerships with Laybuy, and tagged the Laybuy Instagram account in the text of the post. However, neither ad stated that Laybuy were a BNPL provider, or that their services were a form of credit, and instead only presented the Master Your Money campaign. Ad (c) also referred to Laybuy as ‘the payment provider’, without making it clear what the product offered by Laybuy was.
Because the ads failed to include material information that the service offered by Laybuy was a form of credit, we concluded that they were misleading.
On that point, ads (a), (b) and (c) breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 and 3.3 (Misleading advertising), 3.9 (Qualification), 14.1 and 14.2 (Financial products).
2. Not upheld
We accepted that the wider ‘Master Your Money’ campaign was itself distinct and separate from Laybuy’s BNPL product. We considered that while the ads were intended to raise Laybuy’s profile in a wider sense, it was likely that consumers would understand that they were specifically intended to promote the ‘Master Your Money’ campaign, and the Financial Health Check tool, and did not themselves involve the use Laybuy’s BNPL product. We also accepted that the ‘Master Your Money’ phrase was a tagline for that particular campaign, and not a slogan for Laybuy’s BNPL product.
We considered that ad (a) was focused on issues which could arise from debt and financial concerns, such as the negative impact that financial insecurity could have on people. We considered that the focus on the negatives of accumulating debt was consistent and prominent throughout the advertorial. We noted that there was a separation between the advice and information provided in ad (a) and Laybuy’s BNPL product, and we considered that meant that it was unlikely that consumers would take from the ad that Laybuy were explicitly promoting their BNPL services as a solution to financial instability.Similarly, neither ad (b) nor ad (c) linked to the BNPL product, or recommended using BNPL services. We considered the tone of those ads was generally about supporting consumers, rather than as a suggestion that the consumers could ‘Master Your Money’ by using a BNPL service, and we considered they were also unlikely to be seen as promoting their BNPL services as a solution to financial instability.
We therefore considered it was unlikely that consumers would conclude that the overarching advice being presented was that BNPL loans were the best solution to people’s financial concerns.
Because we considered the ads did not portray Laybuy’s service as a solution to financial concerns, we concluded that they were not irresponsible.
On that point, we investigated ads (a), (b) and (c) under CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 1.3 (Compliance), but did not find them in breach.
Action
The ads must not appear again in their current form. We told Laybuy Holdings (UK) Ltd to ensure that future ads made it explicitly clear to consumers that they offered a ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ product that was a form of credit.
