Ad description
Claims on a website for an amateur radio equipment retailer, www.hamradio.co.uk, seen on 20 July 2017. Text stated, ML&S martin lynch & sons [sic] The World's Favourite Ham Store".
Issue
The complainant challenged whether the claim "The World's Favourite Ham Store" was misleading and could be substantiated.
Response
ML&S Martin Lynch & Sons Ltd said they had used the claim on a subjective basis for the previous 16 years. However, they recognised that a consumer might read the claim ‘world’s favourite’ to mean they were either the largest or 'number 1' ham store. They said an airline had used a similar slogan based on total seats sold so perhaps a comparable volumetric method was more acceptable. They believed they could substantiate the claim based on their distribution and retail of a widely used product in their small market, known as the FUNcube. The product was a radio receiver that they retailed and distributed, and they said it was available from all of their competitors and was therefore a good basis for comparison. They said it was also available from many vendors worldwide, and that they had distributed and retailed 8641 of the units since 2012. They provided a breakdown of that number, showing how many they sold directly to the public, and how many they sold through other retailers, including a figure given for ‘rest of the world trade sales’ as ‘approximately 2,500’. They maintained that volume made them ‘the world’s favourite ham store’.
ML&S had recently started collecting customer feedback data and that initial feedback had been in the form of a chart, which they provided, showing that over 80% of respondents to a survey had said they were 'very satisfied' with the company. They said it showed a promising start to analysis of their customer feedback and if they were to be challenged on something that they did not believe was really measurable then they offered that as further evidence.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA considered that consumers would understand the claim "The World's Favourite Ham Store" to be an objective one, and in particular that ML&S was the leading ham radio retailer, in terms of unit sales and/or turnover. We therefore expected to see evidence showing how ML&S compared to the rest of the market. However, we had only seen figures relating to the number of units sold of one product, and only the figures relating to how many the advertiser had sold, directly to the public and through other retailers – rather than providing comparative evidence of turnover or overall unit sales against competitors worldwide – and therefore no comparison could be made. We did not consider that information, or the results of one survey question only relating to the advertiser's service, sufficient to substantiate a claim to be the world's favourite.
Given that we had not seen any comparative evidence relating to unit sales or turnover, we concluded that the claim had not been substantiated and was misleading.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 3.1 Marketing communications must not materially mislead or be likely to do so. (Misleading advertising), 3.7 3.7 Before distributing or submitting a marketing communication for publication, marketers must hold documentary evidence to prove claims that consumers are likely to regard as objective and that are capable of objective substantiation. The ASA may regard claims as misleading in the absence of adequate substantiation. (Substantiation) and 3.33 3.33 Marketing communications that include a comparison with an identifiable competitor must not mislead, or be likely to mislead, the consumer about either the advertised product or the competing product. (Comparisons with identifiable competitors).
Action
The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told ML&S Martin Lynch & Sons Ltd not to claim to be the world's favourite ham store, or a similar claim likely to be interpreted as a leading claim, unless they held adequate comparative evidence to substantiate it.
