Advertisment
Two advertisements were provided by the complainant.
Advertisement 1 featured the following:
“Exclusive to dyson.ie
dyson hot+cool
Dyson Hot + Cool fan heater in black/nickel.
Fast, even room heating. Powerful personal cooling. Now with Jet Focus control.
€329.00”
Advertisement 2 displayed two days later was the same except the header and pricing, which were the following:
“Black Friday offer
…
Was €430.00
€329.00
Save €101.00”
Complaint
The complainant considered the advertising to be misleading regarding the reduction being applied to the price of the product.
Response
The advertisers said that on this occasion they intended for the product to be advertised as an offer for €329 (‘Was €430.00, save €101.00’) from the 20th November as the Black Friday Offer. They said that, regrettably, due to internal errors, the product was incorrectly displayed on their website at the price of €329 just before the Black Friday Offer. They said this resulted in the complainant seeing the product as being priced at €329 on the 18th November 2019 and then displayed as a Black Friday Offer of €329 on 20th November 2019.
The advertisers recognised that internal error did not change or justify the issues surrounding the offer which could appear to be misleading and inaccurate to a consumer. As a priority, they said they were reviewing their internal process to prevent similar errors from happening in the future.
Conclusion
Complaint Upheld.
The Complaints Committee considered the detail of the complaint and the advertisers’ response. The Committee noted that the issue occurred as a result of internal error.
They considered that the pricing displayed before and after the offer went live was likely to mislead the consumers. In the circumstances the Committee considered the advertising was in breach of section 4.1, 4.4, 4.9, 4.10 and 4.26 of the Code.
ACTION REQUIRED:
No further action required as the Committee noted that the advertisers were reviewing processes to avoid such errors.
