Mail’s Mailing Comes To ASA Attention
The ongoing battle between mid market papers the Daily Express and the Daily Mail continued at the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) this month, when complaints from both the Express and a member of the public over a Mail direct mailing received adjudication.
The complaints were with regard to a mailing sent to members of the public shortly after Richard Desmond bought the Express (see Gossip And Girlie Publisher Takes On Express And Star). It was headlined “The Daily and Sunday Express have just been acquired by a pornographer. Do you really want an X-rated paper in your home? Open this envelope and find out how you could save over £20 and read a paper you and your family can be proud of.”
Both complainants felt that the claim that the paper would become X-rated were unsubstantiated and misleading. The member of the public said the claim was likely to alarm recipients and the Express believed it was denigratory.
The advertisers said that the claims needed to be read in context and that they had been accompanied by a letter explaining Desmond’s porn connections. It said the “X-rated” statement was an expression of opinion, not fact and cited various newspapers and MPs to back its concerns.
The Authority upheld the complaint regarding the misleading nature of the claims made, saying that just because the new owner had the background he did did not mean he would introduce X-rated material into the newspapers. It asked the advertisers to make it clear that they were expressing an opinion in future similar advertisements. It did not uphold the claim that the mailing would cause undue alarm, despite the widespread expressions of concern which included 38 Express readers writing to the Express.
The Authority also upheld the final complaint from the Express, considering that, despite the Mail’s claims to be expressing its own opinion, the mailing “unfairly discredited the editorial integrity of the Express because of Richard Desmond’s background in pornography.” It asked Daily Mail to change its approach in future.
ASA: 020 7580 5555 www.asa.org.uk
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