ASA Grounds Ryanair But Greenlights Daewoo
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has grounded Ryanair by upholding complaints against a poster for flights, but has given Daewoo the green light by dismissing objections that an advert for its new car was misleading.
The ASA received complaints about a poster advertising flights on Ryanair, the poster stated: “We Guarantee the lowest Fares” and featured a picture of one of the advertiser’s planes. Along the foot of the advertisement was the statement “Ryanair.com. The low fares website.” The destinations Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Scotland, Sweden and the UK were also listed.
The complainant objected to the poster because he found that another airline offered cheaper flights between Glasgow and London.
The advertisers explained that they had measures in place to ensure they offered the lowest fares, explaining that if one of their fares was found to cost more than that of one of their competitors, that fare was immediately lowered. They also said that if a passenger who had booked with them found a lower priced fare with another airline they would refund double the difference between the fares. However the authority noted that although they had monitored prices and offered a price guarantee, other airlines offered lower prices on some comparable flights. Because the advertisers did not offer the lowest fares all the time the ASA concluded that the advertisers were not justified in claiming that they offered the lowest fares.
The authority told the advertisers to revise the claim and noted that they were discussing how to make the claim acceptable with the Committee of Advertising Copy Advice team.
The ASA also received objections to a weekend magazine supplement advertising the new Daewoo car. It stated “Our new Baby. The new member of the Daewoo family is looking good. It’s got the unique Daewoo birth marks (a free courtesy car, 3 year, 60,000 mile comprehensive warranty).”
Complainants objected to the fact that the ad did not make it clear that to take advantage of the free courtesy car, customers needed to arrange their own insurance and challenged whether the car had “the unique Daewoo birth marks,” as courtesy cars had previously been supplied without the need for customers to arrange their own insurance. The advertisers believed that the ad was not misleading and the fact that the advertised package had previously included insurance was circumstantial. They also acknowledged that although customers did not previously have to arrange insurance on courtesy cars, the unique Daewoo birthmarks clearly referred to the entire Daewoo package which included service and warranty, and was still unique.
The ASA found it was not necessary for the ad to state that the courtesy car was not inclusive of insurance and agreed that the “unique” claim did not only refer to the courtesy car. The authority concluded that the advertisement was not likely to mislead.
ASA: 020 7580 5555 www.asa.org.uk
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