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The five key areas the ASA is focussing on: making sure your ad is not misleading

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By Ishbel Macleod, PR and social media consultant

May 1, 2013 | 4 min read

The ASA has released its annual report for 2012, and one of the key areas it looks at, as well as the most complained about ads, is the five areas of misleading advertising that are ‘firmly on their radar’.

Having revealed that 70 per cent of its cases were about misleading advertising, The Drum takes a look at the ASA’s top five list, to help advertisers and brands make sure that their ads will not fall foul of the rules.

Free trials that cost

The ASA have said that several ads had to be banned in 2012 for making customers become unwittingly tied into a paid relationship after having signed up to a free offer.The authority is advising that customers make sure they read the small print before signing up to deals, but is also ‘alert’ to tackling the issue.One example is an ad by CYC Marketing Ltd, which saw unwitting consumers charged £69.95 if they didn’t return the one-month trial supply within 14 days of the order date. Those who had signed up for the free trial were also unsuspectingly tied into an on-going supply at £69.95 per month.

Daily deals

With more and more daily deal sites sprouting up, the ASA is now finding ‘widespread problems’ with the ways in which some deals are advertised.The ASA said that their work has resulted in a ‘wholesale shift in the way these businesses now approach their advertising’.Main issues discovered were that the companies failed to conduct promotions fairly; not making clear significant terms and conditions; failing to provide evidence that offers were available; and making exaggerated savings claims.This is perhaps more an area for copywriters than advertisers, with daily deal sites needing to make sure the terms and conditions coming from the vendor, with ASA saying that it has helped businesses put new internal processes in place.It did warn ‘we’re keeping a close eye on the sector to make sure consumers get a fair deal.’

Misleading pricing

Booking fees, credit card charges or admin fees – anything which means that an advertised price actually has extra charges involved falls under this category.Called ‘bait-pricing’, ‘drip-pricing’ or ‘partition pricing’, the ASA have described this area as one of its top priorities, and says in 2012 this led to more transparent pricing in the hotels sector to get them to include VAT in their advertised room prices and in the telecoms sector to be clearer about the price of packages that include several elements, e.g. broadband, line rental, call costs and TV.The ASA said that more work will be underway this year to stop businesses from ‘baiting the public unfairly’.

Misleading testimonials

Fake reviews and reviews that are edited so that they mislead consumers and undermine trust are another area that the ASA is focussing on. However, that is not the only area that comes under the ‘misleading testimonials’ banner: paid for commercial tweets must let the consumers know that they are a commercial message, with celebrity tweets being a keen example.

Misleading health claims

Making false claims about the health benefits of products in ads is an area which the ASA is taking seriously, as it suggests such claims can stop people from seeking medical advice.It said: “One company misleadingly claimed its ‘Earthing sheets or mats’ could aid sleep, affect the thyroid, metabolism and had anti-aging properties. But the only evidence we saw was that it would lighten your wallet.”These claims are most likely to be made online, the ASA suggests.

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