Ad description
Two advertorials for viagogo, seen on www.nme.com:
a. The first advertorial, seen on 16 June 2023, was headed “The best gigs to see this summer at Hyde Park”. Text below stated “A paid-for ad feature for viagogo”. The ad listed five gigs scheduled to take place at the festival “American Express Presents: BST Hyde Park: Blackpink, Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band, Pink, Guns N’ Roses and Lana Del Ray”. Text at the end of all five segments detailing each gig stated “Fans can buy and sell tickets for [name of artist performing] at global marketplace, viagogo, here”. The text included a link to the viagogo website, where tickets were sold for each gig.
b. The second advertorial, seen on 20 July 2023, was headed “A beginners guide to getting Taylor Swift ‘Eras’ tour tickets. How to avoid the scammers and secure tickets”. Text below stated “A paid-for ad feature for viagogo”. The body copy included text which stated “to purchase resale tickets as safely as possible, fans should avoid buying tickets via social media […] Your best bet is ticket marketplaces like viagogo, which connects ticket sellers with fans via a safe platform. All viagogo orders come with a 100 percent customer guarantee that backs each order, which means fans get in the door or their money back – as ticket sellers don’t get paid until the buyer gets into the event successfully [...] For sellers as well, ticket marketplaces like viagogo offer a safe, secure way to sell unwanted tickets. Fans can buy and sell tickets for Taylor Swift at global marketplace, viagogo here”. The text included a link to the viagogo website, where tickets were sold for Taylor Swift’s tour.
Issue
FanFair Alliance, who understood the resale of tickets through secondary ticketing websites like viagogo was prohibited by the events listed in the ads, challenged whether the ads were misleading.
Response
viagogo AG did not believe the ads were misleading. They said the ads simply stated that tickets for the events were legitimately available on their secondary ticketing marketplace and were not an offering to consumers to enter into a transaction for a specific ticket. There was no law which prohibited the resale of tickets for music events and they believed there was nothing in the ads which implied viagogo was an official primary ticketing outlet.
They believed it was extremely unlikely that a customer would not gain admission to an event after purchasing a ticket through viagogo, even if the terms and conditions of the event itself purported that resale tickets were prohibited. Less than one per cent of customers were denied entry to events after having purchased a ticket on their platform, and they operated a guarantee so that if a customer was not admitted they would be entitled to a refund.
They believed consumers would not consider that an ad for an event was misleading because it failed to mention every possible contingency that may arise - for example, that the event might be cancelled due to the illness of the performer. Furthermore, they explained that all additional information which related to a ticket for a specific event was clearly made available to consumers on the viagogo website before a consumer purchased that ticket. This included all relevant restrictions on resale that viagogo was aware of.viagogo explained that the Enforcement Order, obtained by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in 2018, only applied to their internal processes and the presentation of information on their website. They said they were in full compliance with the Order, which included the requirement to notify consumers of any relevant restrictions on resale that they were aware of. They believed there were no grounds for that Order to apply to any of viagogo’s advertising outside of their website.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA acknowledged that the CMA Enforcement Order referenced by viagogo only applied to their internal processes and the presentation of information on their own website and did not apply outside of that. However, the CAP Code stated that marketing communications must not mislead consumers by omitting material information. It also stated that ads must not mislead by hiding material information or presenting it in an unclear, unintelligible, ambiguous or untimely manner. We therefore assessed whether the ads omitted material information in relation to the resale policy of each event and whether the omission of that information was misleading.
The ads included detailed descriptions about the BST Hyde Park festival (ad (a)) and the Taylor Swift Era’s tour (ad (b)), including information on when the events took place and how tickets could be bought and sold on viagogo’s website. For example, ad (a) stated “Fans can buy and sell tickets for [name of artist performing] at global marketplace, viagogo, here”. Ad (b) stated “to purchase resale tickets as safely as possible, fans should avoid buying tickets via social media […] Your best bet is ticket marketplaces like viagogo, which connects ticket sellers with fans via a safe platform” and “Fans can buy and sell tickets for Taylor Swift at global marketplace, viagogo here”. We considered consumers would understand those claims to mean that purchasing a ticket on viagogo was one way of obtaining a ticket for the events. We noted the ads did not include any information to make consumers aware that some venues, including the ones listed, did not accept resale tickets and that consumers who purchased them might be refused entry on the door.
We understood that the official terms and conditions for the Taylor Swift Era’s tour stated "your ticket(s) will immediately become invalid if resold or offered for sale unless the sale is through the official ticket agent fan to fan exchange. Tickets sold via third parties and other unauthorised outlets, including online auction sites, are not valid for admission. The resale of a ticket via unauthorized outlets renders it invalid and may lead to refusal of entry”. We also understood that the BST Hyde Park terms and conditions stated “tickets are not transferable unless purchased and transferred through Flash Mobile Delivery on the AXS platform” and “any tickets brought from unauthorised agents, or third parties are not valid and admission to the event will not be permitted”. Because viagogo was a secondary-ticket outlet, we considered BST Hyde Park and Taylor Swift Era’s tour tickets purchased on the viagogo website were purported to be invalid, according to both event’s terms and conditions.
We understood that viagogo operated a guarantee whereby anyone who was not admitted to an event was entitled to receive a refund and we acknowledged that only a small proportion of their customers had been refused entry. However, we considered that the prohibition of resale tickets, as outlined in both the BST Hyde Park and Taylor Swift Era’s tour terms and conditions, was material information which was likely to affect a consumer’s decision to purchase tickets through viagogo. Because the ads omitted material information about the validity of tickets purchased through viagogo and the risk of the venues refusing entry to consumers who had purchased their tickets through secondary ticketing websites, we concluded that they were misleading.
The ads breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 3.1 and 3.3 (Misleading advertising).
Action
The ads must not appear again in the form complained of. We told viagogo AG to ensure future ads did not mislead consumers by omitting material information regarding the entry restrictions on tickets purchased through them and other secondary ticketing sites.
