Ad description
An Ebay listing and website for Elegant, a bathrooms company, seen in October 2017:
a. An Ebay listing for a Vertical Flat Panel Designer Radiator listed by Elegent stated “All of our radiators come with a 25 year guarantee” under “Product Details”. Further down the listing under a tab labelled “Guarantee”, the ad stated, “For complete peace of mind, all our products are accompanied by a lifetime guarantee subject to our warranty terms and conditions”. The text included a hyperlink to a separate page.
b. A product listing for a Vertical Flat Panel Designer Radiator on their website, www.elegantshowers.co.uk, stated under a tab labelled “Product Description” that the product had a “25 year guarantee”.
Issue
The complainant, who understood that the guarantee only covered the brackets and consumables, and not the radiator itself, challenged whether the claims in ads (a) and (b) were misleading.
Response
Sunny Showers Ltd t/a Elegant said that they did not consider that the ads were misleading because consumers could click on the link under the “Guarantee” tab on ad (a) which explained what was covered by the guarantee.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA considered that consumers would understand the claim “25 year guarantee” in both ads (a) and (b) to mean that the whole product was covered by the guarantee, because neither ad stated otherwise.
The CAP Code required that marketing communications made clear each significant limitation to an advertised guarantee. The Code also required that marketing communications must not mislead by omitting material information. We considered that the guarantee only covering the brackets and consumables, and not the radiator, was a significant limitation which should have been made clear in both ads (a) and (b). Because the ads omitted that information, we therefore concluded that both ads (a) and (b) were misleading.
The ads breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules
3.1
3.1
Marketing communications must not materially mislead or be likely to do so.
and
3.3
3.3
Marketing communications must not mislead the consumer by omitting material information. They must not mislead by hiding material information or presenting it in an unclear, unintelligible, ambiguous or untimely manner.
Material information is information that the consumer needs to make informed decisions in relation to a product. Whether the omission or presentation of material information is likely to mislead the consumer depends on the context, the medium and, if the medium of the marketing communication is constrained by time or space, the measures that the marketer takes to make that information available to the consumer by other means.
(Misleading advertising),
3.9
3.9
Marketing communications must state significant limitations and qualifications. Qualifications may clarify but must not contradict the claims that they qualify.
(Qualification) and
3.54
3.54
Marketing communications must make clear each significant limitation to an advertised guarantee (of the type that has implications for a consumer's rights). Marketers must supply the full terms before the consumer is committed to taking up the guarantee.
(Guarantees and after-sales service).
Action
The ads must not appear again in their current form. We told Elegant to ensure that all significant limitations to their guarantee were prominently displayed in future ads which made reference to the guarantee.
