ASA Upholds ‘German’ Complaint

Having people think you’re German is not necessarily a bad thing, unless perhaps you’re looking for a job in football at the moment, but it seems that pretending to be German can get you in trouble, as a kitchen manufacturer recently discovered.

The ASA dealt with a complaint this week about the kitchen company Moben, whose redesigned logo made it look as if the ‘o’ had a German umlaut accent on it. An objection was made to the use of the logo in national advertising, on the grounds that “by portraying themselves as German, the company were trying to add credibility to their brand.”

The advertisers denied that this was the reason for the offending dots, insisting that this was an element of a design meant to tie in with the logos of its two other brands, Sharps Bedrooms and Dolphin Bedrooms, which shared showroom space with Moben. They pointed out that what looked like an “umlaut” was in fact in a different colour to the type and that in any case, the accent was also used in the languages of Switzerland, Austria and Liechtenstein. They also pointed out that it was not possible to buy a kitchen via the telephone number on the advert and that consumers would therefore be made aware that this was not a German company.

The ASA was not convinced, however, saying that when the Moben logo was seen without the other two brand logos consumers were “likely to interpret the two dots as a German umlaut and regard the advertisers as a German company.” The two dots were therefore judged misleading and the advertisers were asked to remove the design from advertising or add a disclaimer stating that the advertisers were not a German company.

ASA: 020 7580 5555 www.asa.org.uk

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