Ad description
A regional press ad for Essex Countryside, stated "£99 Introducing the cheapest way to sell your home. It sounds too good to be true, but it isn't! From 17th July 2014, we are introducing a brand new way to buy and sell property. It guarantees you will receive the highest offer possible and cost you no more than £99. This fixed price includes your EPC, property details and floor plan […] It is set to be the biggest innovation in buying and selling property in Essex in decades".
Issue
Spicerhaart Estate Agents Ltd challenged whether the claims:
1. "Introducing the cheapest way to sell your home"; and
2. "It guarantees you will receive the highest offer possible and cost you no more than £99" were misleading and could be substantiated
Response
1. & 2. Essex Countryside Ltd stated that when the ad went to press, they believed that no other agent in the area was offering a cheaper way to sell a vendor's property.
Essex Countryside said that they were the only agent within their local area who offered 'Sale by Tender' (SBT) and charged £99 including VAT to the vendor, who would receive an Energy Performance Certificate, floor plans and have their property advertised online and in the local area. They said that the SBT was a four-week tender process, whereby all bids were collected by a specific date. The highest bid therefore guaranteed the highest price possible for the vendor.
Assessment
1. & 2. Upheld
The ASA acknowledged that Essex Countryside believed that they were the cheapest agents in their area when the ad went to press. They did not, however, provide any documentary evidence to substantiate the claim.
We noted that Essex Countryside offered consumers an SBT service when selling their properties and guaranteed that consumers would receive the highest offer made on their property. However, we considered that the claim "It guarantees you will receive the highest offer possible" suggested that there was no way that vendors could obtain a higher offer than through the use of the advertiser's service.
Therefore, because we had not seen any documentary evidence illustrating that Essex Countryside were the cheapest agents in their area, and that they could guarantee the highest offer possible for a vendor's property, we concluded that the claims were 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.
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),
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) and
3.39
3.39
Marketing communications that include a price comparison must make the basis of the comparison clear.
CAP has published a Help Note on Retailers' Price Comparisons and a Help Note on Lowest Price Claims and Price Promises.
(Price Comparisons)
Action
The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told Essex Countryside Ltd that their future advertising must not state or suggest that they were the cheapest estate agents in their area and that they could guarantee the highest offer possible for a vendor's property, unless they possessed robust documentary evidence.
