Scottish Power savings ad deemed misleading by ASA
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned Scottish Power from making a savings claim which it tried to substantiate with a survey which lacked suitable conditions.
One complaint regarding the energy provider’s ad which claimed "Save up to 20% off your gas heating" was upheld with the watchdog reasoning that it “was misleading and could be substantiated”.
Scottish Power said a third party survey of 70 staff and customer homes between October and December 2011, showed that users who adjusted boiler temperature remotely would save 21 per cent of spending compared to those who adjusted it less than once a week.
The ASA noted that the study failed to consider variables other than remote boiler control - such as house size and design, “failing to prove that there was a causal relationship between a customer's engagement with the product and their energy usage”.
The watchdog said: “We considered that the evidence provided was not sufficient to substantiate the claim that the product could result in a reduction in energy usage or a corresponding reduction in a user's gas bill, and concluded that the claim was misleading.”
The ad was found to breach three rules, misleading advertising, substantiation and exaggeration.
The claim is not to appear again in its current form and the provider must “substantiate [its] objective marketing claims and that their claims were adequately qualified, in future”.