Background
Summary of Council decision:
Five issues were investigated, all of which were Upheld.
Ad description
The website collegefornutrition.org, which promoted a company offering educational courses in nutrition, featured a large image of an old red-brick building set on a large lawn. A caption stated "The Worlds [sic] Largest Nutrition College With offices in London, Cape Town, Dubai and Toronto". Text under the heading "Who are we?" stated "We are the worlds [sic] largest awarding body of Nutritional Qualifications ...". Text under the heading "What we do?" stated "We enable those wishing to become Qualified Nutritionists to achieve their goals by delivering internationally recognised qualifications ...".
Issue
The Association for Nutrition, a voluntary regulator for qualified nutritionists, challenged whether the following claims were misleading and could be substantiated:
1. "The Worlds [sic] Largest Nutrition College";
2. "offices in London, Cape Town, Dubai and Toronto";
3. "We are the worlds [sic] largest awarding body of Nutritional Qualifications"; and
4. "delivering internationally recognised qualifications".
5. They also challenged whether the image on the website, which they understood was a photo of Jesus College, Cambridge, was misleading.
Response
1. − 5. The College for Nutrition Ltd did not respond to the ASA's enquiries.
Assessment
The ASA was concerned by The College for Nutrition Ltd's lack of substantive response and apparent disregard for the Code, which was a breach of CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 1.7 1.7 Any unreasonable delay in responding to the ASA's enquiries will normally be considered a breach of the Code. (Unreasonable delay). We reminded them of their responsibility to provide a substantive response to our enquiries and told them to do so in future.
1. & 3. Upheld
We considered that the claims "The Worlds [sic] Largest Nutrition College" and "We are the worlds [sic] largest awarding body of Nutritional Qualifications" should be supported by comparative evidence showing that the College for Nutrition had enrolled more students and had awarded more qualifications in nutrition than any other establishment, based both in and outside of the UK. In the absence of supporting documentation, we concluded that the claims were misleading.
The claims 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),
3.7
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
3.38
3.38
Marketing communications that include a comparison with an unidentifiable competitor must not mislead, or be likely to mislead, the consumer. The elements of the comparison must not be selected to give the marketer an unrepresentative advantage.
(Other comparisons).
2. & 4. Upheld
We considered that the claim that the College for Nutrition Ltd had "offices in London, Cape Town, Dubai and Toronto" would be understood to mean that they offered recognised nutrition courses or qualifications in the UK, South Africa, Dubai and Canada. We further considered that the claim "delivering internationally recognised qualifications" would be understood to mean that the qualifications offered were recognised internationally and therefore could be used to seek relevant employment across the world. In the absence of supporting documentation, we concluded that the claims were misleading.
The claims 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) and
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).
5. Upheld
We understood that the image on the ad was Jesus College, Cambridge. We considered that those consumers who did not recognise the building in the image would be likely to understand that it was the building in which the College for Nutrition was based and offered its courses; namely, in a large and impressive building, which had the appearance of a historical and reputable British educational establishment. Because we had not seen any documentation relating to the building in which the College for Nutrition offered its courses, tuition or qualifications or any evidence that the College for Nutrition offered any courses or tuition in the college featured in the ad, we concluded that the use of the image was misleading.
On that point, the ad 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) and
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).
Action
The ad must not appear again in its current form. We referred the matter to CAP's Compliance team. We told the advertisers not to imply that they offered their courses in particular buildings and not to make any claims regarding the qualifications they offered without holding supporting documentation.
