Background
Summary of Council decision:
Three issues were investigated, all of which were Upheld.
Ad description
15 tweets from PrettyLittleThing on their X (formerly Twitter) page, posted between Thursday 23 and Tuesday 28 November 2023, with similar ads posted on their other social media accounts:
a. A tweet posted at 9.00 am on 23 November stated “30% OFF EVERYTHING* CODE: PINK30 […] Ends 12pm”.
b. A tweet posted at 12.00 pm on 23 November stated “3 HOURS ONLY CODE PINK33 For 33% off EVERYTHING”.
c. A tweet posted at 3.23 pm on 23 November stated “QUICK Get an EXTRA 30% OFF* with ‘PINK30’ […] Ends 9pm *Excl Sale & Beauty”. An image included the text “#PLTPINKFRIDAY”.
d. A tweet posted at 9.01 pm on 23 November stated “FUCK IT… Get 40% off EVERY SINGLE THING* Use CODE: FUCKIT40 Quick before the boss finds out”. An image included the text “PINK FRIDAY IS HERE! […] #PLTPINKFRIDAY”.
e. A tweet posted at 11 pm on 23 November stated “FUCKIT40” several times, followed by the text “Only 3 hours left to use this code before my boss finds out”.
f. A tweet posted at 9 am on 24 November stated “PINK FRIDAY HAS ARRIVED Shop 40% Off EVERYTHING through this link”. An image included the large text “PLTPINKFRIDAY PINK FRIDAY IS HERE 40% OFF EVERYTHING* CODE: PINK40” and very small text that stated “*EXCL SALE AND BEAUTY".
g. A tweet posted at 12 pm on 24 November stated “THE BIG UP TO 99% OFFER IS HERE For one hour ONLY Shop via the NOW [link] GO GO GO #PLTPINKFRIDAY”. An image featured the text “YOU ASKED FOR IT 99% OFF 1000’S OF LINES” and a roundel with text that stated “1 HOUR ONLY”.
h. A tweet posted at 12 pm on 25 November stated “PINK 40 PLT PINK FRIDAY is here to stay Shop 40% Off ALL DAY”. An image included the large text “40% OFF EVERYTHING*” and very small text that stated “EXCL SALE AND BEAUTY”.
i. A tweet posted at 9:20 am on 27 November stated “IT’S PINK MONDAY UK DOLLS [UK flag emoji] CODE: FINAL40 For 40% Off Everything* [link] Ends 9pm *Excl Sale & Beauty”.
j. A tweet posted at 11:02 am on 27 November stated “99% OFF IS COMING BACK FOR ONE HOUR ONLY Set your alarms for 12pm today… ‘PLTPinkFriday’”.
k. A tweet posted at 9.01 pm on 27 November stated “FUCK IT Get 50% off EVERYTHING* CODE: FUCKIT50 […] #PLTPinkMonday”.
l. A tweet posted at 9.00 am on 28 November stated “PINK MONDAY EXTENDED PINK30 For 30% Off Everything*”.
m. A tweet posted at 3 pm on 28 November stated “PINK MONDAY EXTENDED Use ‘PINK35’ for 35% Off Everything*”.
n. A tweet posted at 8.00 pm on 28 November stated “40% OFF EVERYTHING* […] *Excl Sale & Beauty – Ends 12am”. An image included the text “#PLTPINKFRIDAY”.
o. A tweet posted at 9.00 am on 30 November stated “FINAL 24 HOURS LAST CHANCE to get 40% Off Everything Use: ‘FINAL40’”.
Issue
The ASA challenged whether:
1. ads (a), (b), and (d) to (o) misleadingly implied that the promotions applied to all products sold by PrettyLittleThing;
2. the absence of closing dates from ads, and the inclusion of closing dates from ads when promotional periods were shortened or extended, breached the Code; and
3. the ads misleadingly implied that further discounts would not be available when the promotion ended.
Response
1. – 3. Prettylittlething.com Ltd t/a PrettyLittleThing said the Black Friday period had become well known to consumers in the UK as a period when businesses offered promotions. They said their customers were value-oriented and their advertising and marketing was reflective of what their customers wanted and expected.
They said they always tried to include significant conditions to promotions in ads, but sometimes space was limited. They included information such as end dates and an asterisk with qualifying information where possible. Detailed further terms and conditions were on their website, which customers could review ahead of any purchase.
Assessment
1. Upheld
Ads (a), (b), (k), (l), (m) and (o) stated “[X]% Off Everything*” and ad (d) stated “Get 40% off EVERY SINGLE THING*”, but the asterisks did not link to any qualifying information. Ads (i) and (n) also featured the headline claim “[X]% Off Everything*” and included the qualifying information “*Excl Sale and Beauty” in the caption. Ads (f) and (h) featured the same headline and qualifying information, but it appeared at the bottom of the images in font so small the ASA considered most consumers would overlook it. We considered ads (f) and (h) therefore breached the Code because the qualifications were not presented clearly.
Notwithstanding that, we considered consumers would understand from the headline claims referencing “everything” and “every single thing”, in all those ads, that the promotions included all products sold by PrettyLittleThing. While five of the ads included qualifying information that sale and beauty items were excluded, we considered they were not sufficient to counter the overriding impression of the ads that all products would be discounted by the stated percentage.
Ad (e) referred to a discount code only being available for a further three hours, and ad (j) referred to a “99% OFF” promotion being available for one hour, starting in one hour’s time. Neither ad included any information about what product lines were included or excluded. We considered such information constituted significant conditions and limitations, which were likely to influence consumers’ decision and understanding about the promotions and were therefore material information that should have been included in the ads. In the absence of any information to that effect, we considered consumers would understand from the ads that all products sold by PrettyLittleThing were included in the promotions.
Ad (g) included the text “YOU ASKED FOR IT 99% off 1000’S OF LINES”. In the absence of information about any exclusions, we considered consumers would understand from the ad that the promotion included product lines across all product types.
We understood that the discount code promotions in all the ads referenced above excluded product lines categorised by PrettyLittleThing as “Beauty” products and all products that were already on sale. Because the ads stated or implied that all product lines sold by PrettyLittleThing were included in the promotions, or made clear that not all lines were included but implied product lines across all product types were included, when that was not the case, we concluded the ads were misleading.
On that point, ads (a), (b), (d), (e), (f), (g), (h), (i), (j), (k), (l), (m), (n) and (o) breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 and 3.3 (Misleading advertising), 3.9 and 3.10 (Qualification), 8.17 and 8.17.1 (Significant conditions for promotions).
2. & 3. Upheld
The CAP Code required that promotions must be conducted equitably and promoters must be seen to deal fairly and honourably with participants and potential participants, and avoid causing unnecessary disappointment. Closing dates for promotions must be included in marketing communications if they were likely to influence consumers’ decision or understanding about the promotion. Promoters must be able to demonstrate that the absence of a closing date would not disadvantage consumers. Closing dates must not be changed unless unavoidable circumstances beyond the promoter’s control made it necessary and either to not change the date would be unfair to those who sought to participate within the original terms, or those who sought to participate within the original terms would not be disadvantaged by the change.
Over the seven-day period between Thursday 23 and Thursday 30 November, which included Black Friday, PrettyLittleThing posted a large number of ads referencing discounts. This included but was not limited to the 15 ads described above. Many consumers who followed PrettyLittleThing on social media would have anticipated that they would run a Black Friday-branded promotion, and that this could potentially last for up to several days, as this was increasingly common in the retail sector. They would have understood the references in the ads to “Pink Friday” and “Pink Monday” as referring to PrettyLittleThing’s Black Friday-branded promotional period.
Over the seven-day period the advertised discounts ranged between 30% and 99%. Some ads advertised promotions with a higher percentage discount than the immediately preceding promotion (for example, ads (b) and (m)); others advertised a lower discount (for example, ads (c) and (l)). The promotions all ran back-to-back with no return to non-discounted selling prices except for a few hours overnight, the one exception being that there appeared to be no promotions running on Sunday 26 November.
We considered consumers would expect that by participating in a price discount promotion they would achieve a genuine saving compared to the usual selling prices, and that prices would revert to the usual selling prices when the promotion ended. As such, for promotional mechanisms which used discount codes that were applied at checkout, they would not expect the promotion to be immediately followed by another, particularly if it offered a higher discount. We also considered that where marketers conducted promotions, higher prices should in general have been charged for a longer duration than the promotional price. Because that was not the case, we considered the advertised promotions were misleading and had not been conducted equitably and that PrettyLittleThing had not dealt fairly and honourably with participants and potential participants.
Additionally, some of the ads did not make clear how long the promotional period lasted (for example, ads (d) and (k)). PrettyLittleThing had not demonstrated that the absence of a closing date/time did not disadvantage consumers and we considered those ads therefore breached the Code on that basis.
Some ads implied that a discount would end at the stated closing date/time only for the following ad to continue the same promotional discount (for example, ads (e) and (f)), or one with such a negligible difference between the percentages that we considered they effectively continued the same promotion: ad (a) stated that a 30% discount would end at 12 pm, but ad (b), posted at 12 pm, introduced a slightly higher discount of 33%, before ad (c) returned the discount to 30% at 3 pm. Further, some ads stated or implied that a discount would last for a specific period of time only for an ad posted later the same day to introduce a much higher discount for a short time during the original promotion (for example, ads (f) and (g), and (i) and (j)). Others extended a previous promotional period: ad (h) extended the Pink Friday promotion to Saturday, and ad (l) extended the Pink Monday promotion to Tuesday. We considered those examples amounted to PrettyLittleThing misleading consumers as to the closing/date times of the promotions, or changing them, which was only permitted in instances when unavoidable circumstances beyond the promoter’s control made it necessary. We had not seen evidence that such circumstances had arisen and therefore considered the ads also breached the Code in those regards.
Finally, ad (i), which announced Pink Monday and featured the discount code “FINAL40” and stated a closing time of 9 pm, implied that it would be the last promotion in the Black Friday period. However, further promotions followed in ads (j) to (o). Similarly, ad (g) announced a 99% discount “For one hour ONLY” on Black Friday, which implied it would not be repeated. However, it was repeated on Black Monday. We considered those ads were therefore misleading. They were also likely to pressure consumers into making swift transactional decisions, including purchasing products, without giving their purchase the due consideration they otherwise would.
For the reasons set out above we concluded the promotions were not conducted equitably and fairly and that the ads were misleading and breached the Code.
On those points, ads (a), (b), (c), (d), (e), (f), (g), (h), (i), (j), (k), (l), (m), (n) and (o) breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 and 3.3 (Misleading advertising), 3.9 (Qualification), 3.17 (Prices), and 8.2, 8.17, 8.17.1, 8.17.4, 8.17.4.a, 8.17.4.c and 8.17.4.e (Significant conditions for promotions).
Action
The ads must not appear again in the form investigated. We told Prettylittlething.com Ltd t/a PrettyLittleThing to ensure their ads did not state or imply that a promotion included all product lines they sold, including by stating that a promotion related to “everything” or “every single thing”, if that was not the case. We also told them to ensure that ads which did make clear that not all product lines were included in a promotion did not imply that product lines across all product types were included, if that was not the case. They must ensure that ads stated significant conditions to promotions, and that qualifications were presented clearly.
We told them to ensure their ads did not mislead as to the closing date/time of promotions, or imply that discount offers were time-limited or would not be repeated if that was not the case. They must include closing dates/times of promotions in ads unless they could demonstrate their absence would not disadvantage consumers, and must not change promotion closing dates unless unavoidable circumstances outside their control made it necessary. We told them to ensure they conducted their promotions equitably and dealt fairly and honourably with participants and potential participants.
CAP Code (Edition 12)
3.1 3.3 3.9 3.10 3.17 8.2 8.17 8.17.1 8.17.4 8.17.4.a 8.17.4.c 8.17.4.e
