Mail’s DVD Promotion Falls Foul Of ASA
Associated Newspapers’ Daily Mail has been rapped by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) over its claim that a free DVD bundled with the paper was “worth £15.99.”
The ruling will have implications for rival titles, with the use of covermounts and free DVDs now likely to be more closely scrutinised.
The Daily Mail claimed that its free copy of A Handful of Dust was worth £15.99 both in television advertising, and on the front of the newspaper. However, the ASA took exception to the claim after a complaint highlighted that the free copy lacked many features available in the retail version of the disc.
Associated defended its claim, stating that the DVD was available in shops for £15.99 and that consumers who had bought the DVD at that price had bought it for the film rather than any additional material. The publisher argued that the value of the DVD was entirely due to the film, rather than its additional content.
The company compared the situation to going to the cinema, where a customer was paying to see a film and not the trailers that preceded it, arguing that additional material in the shop-bought DVD represented free promotional material being given away by film companies, and was not what customers actually paid for.
However, while the ASA accepted that the film could be purchased on DVD from certain retail outlets at a cost of £15.99 and that it included bonus material that people now expect on DVDs, it was ruled that the DVD offered by Associated could not be purchased in that form in shops.
Because the DVD offered by the Daily Mail had never been sold, and was solely available via its own promotion, the advertising watchdog considered that it was “misleading” to attach a cash value to it.
The ASA concluded that the Mail‘s front-page promotion was in breach of CAP Code Clauses 7.1 (Truthfulness), 15.1 (Prices) and 15.5 (Prices – used as a basis of comparison), while its TV advertisement was in breach of CAP (Broadcast) TV Advertising Standards Code Rules 5.1 (Misleading advertising) and 5.3.1 (Accurate pricing).
ASA: 020 7580 5555 www.asa.org.uk