Britvic, who make Tango orange drink, had "no intention to imply oral sex with a bull and they were concerned about any distress caused to those who had interpreted the ad in that way. They had carried out qualitative research groups with 17-20-year-old men before producing the campaign, and none of the respondents had interpreted the ad's headline as referring to oral sex with a bull." In what context would 17-20 year old men admit thinking of oral sex with a bull? The advert said: "Too much Tango made me suck a bull's udder." Another ad, "too much tango made me shave my nan", had "definitely no intention to imply the shaving of vaginal hair".
Press TV, the Iranian government's English-language satellite news channel is truthful! Well, truth is relative. The ASA said, "We considered that '24/7 TRUTH' would be seen as the station's opinion of the information it provided rather than an objective claim." As long as they "provided the full story as they saw it" there is no need to prove the reporting actually was true. This will surely be a comfort to TV news organisations everywhere.
If a company's response to a complaint starts like the following, you can probably guess the outcome:
The Watermark Club Ltd (the Watermark Club) said the word "holiday" originated from Holy day, used to describe a day of festivity or recreation where no work was done. They defined other words, for example "second home", "residential property" and "holiday lodge". They said a "second home" plainly meant a place where one did not live as ones permanent home no more or less and underlined that in all probability if you were away from your primary home you would be on a break or on holiday.A complaint was upheld against holiday home property company Watermark Club, which was told that it had to make it clear you couldn't live in your new waterside home between "January 6 and February 5 of each year", amongst other restrictions.
liverock.org.uk advertised a fake Dionne Warwick concert on Magic FM. One punter "paid £296.00 for four tickets to the concert and subsequently found out that Dionne Warwick was not performing".
British Airways advertised the delights of Guangzhou (Canton), despite not actually flying to Canton - they suggest you can fly to Hong Kong or Shanghai and go from there. Complaint upheld.
British Gas will phone ahead to warn you before they come around. Except if they're coming to read your meter.
Car dealer Stoneacre Motor Group gets in trouble for advertising a scrappage scheme but not scrapping the cars.
Daily Mail misleading over a promotion for "free bulbs".
It's ok for Peta to say that eating meat gives you man-boobs.
Virgin Media in trouble for being rude to ginger-haired people!
The same presenter appeared on 2 different TV shopping channels at the same time, but this was found "unlikely to materially mislead viewers".
Best product idea of the bunch: Extend-A-Room offer to make your house bigger by constructing a new room in just 1-2 days (basically, it's a conservatory). Sadly, it seems they're not quite that fast.
With any recession come recruitment scams, such as the unimaginatively named JK Data and DH Data, and escort agency First4Companions. Meanwhile recruitment firm Pro-Tax was caught exaggerating its influence. And it strayed over into training: Redwood Futures were misleading wannabe accountants and The Ensign Group taxi drivers. Belmont Sporting's gambling system isn't any use either.
Martini won't make you beautiful! An event at a Pitcher and Piano bar promised "Stay beautiful with Martini". According to the ASA code, alcohol does not enhance attractiveness.
Digital Satellite Warranty Cover Ltd seem to have some method of getting hold of Sky customers' addresses and sending them direct mail. (Admittedly they could find out simply by looking at someone's house that they have Sky.)
Dating site eHarmony was criticised for claiming "2% of American couples who had married in 2007 were likely to have met through eHarmony" - their evidence doesn't show that - and because 20% of applicants got no matches at all.
Mobile Phone Xchange Ltd will exchange many mobile phones for cash! But not all.
Products and services that don't work as claimed: Easylife Pelvic Back Pain Belt; Dore program for treating dyslexia and Asperger's syndrome; Estee Lauder's "wrinkle-fighter" Perfectionist CP+ Wrinkle Lifting Serum; killyourstutter.com; Lloyds Pharmacy hay fever reliever; Advanced Hair Studio; Gymform Vibro Max; Larsen Health Care's chiropractic treatment for IBS, colds and asthma; Pain Ease electric patch; jennysweighlosssuccess.com; Omega XL artery cleaner; and Direct Beauty Products' silk anti-aging pillowcases. In all these cases, advertisers failed to produce evidence of claims (although the Estee Lauder stuff does work as well as any cheap moisturiser).
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