Hillarys Blinds Ltd Colwick Business Park Private Road No 2 Colwick Nottingham NG4 2JR Number of complaints: 1

Date: 1 October 2008 Media: Leaflet Sector: Household Agency: TBWA

Ad
A direct mailing was headlined "RED HOT SALE".  Text on the front cover stated "Hot summer savings in our half price blinds sale".  Text inside stated "Half price summer savings on all these beautiful blinds Vertical blinds Roller blinds Roman blinds Venetian blinds Blackout blinds Pleated blinds Conservatory blinds".  

Various images of blinds were shown. Text below "Vertical blinds", "Venetian blinds", "Roman blinds", "Conservatory blinds" and "Pleated blinds", stated "HALF PRICE".  An image of blackout blinds was shown but was not labelled "HALF PRICE".  Small print on the back cover stated "Red Hot Half Price sale applies to specially selected made-to-measure blinds only ... The photography used is to give you a taster of our range and may not match the discount shown".

Issue
The complainant objected that the mailing was misleading because it did not make clear that the discount applied to selected blinds only and did not include the blinds featured in the leaflet.

The CAP Code:

7.1;27.4

Response
Hillarys Blinds Ltd (Hillarys) said 80 products, which represented 10.6% of their range, were available for half price during the Red Hot Sale; this included blinds from their roman, roller, vertical, venetian, pleated, blackout and conservatory categories.  

They said they had no plans to use the direct mailing after 29 August 2008; in their next campaign they had featured only images of blinds that were included in the promotion and had stated "50% off on selected blinds" in both the body copy and the terms and conditions.  Hillarys said they had met with their local Trading Standards office to help ensure their communications were acceptable.

Assessment
Upheld
The ASA noted Hillarys said products from each of the categories listed in the direct mailing were available in the promotion and the small print stated "The photography used is to give you a taster of our range and may not match the discount shown".  

Because the ad stated "Half price summer savings on all these beautiful blinds" we considered consumers were likely to expect all blinds in the listed categories, and in the images shown, to be half price.  Because the promotion applied only to selected made-to-measure blinds from each category, and not necessarily to the images featured in the ad, we concluded that the ad was misleading and likely to cause unnecessary disappointment.  

The ad breached CAP Code clauses 7.1 (Truthfulness) and 27.4 (Unnecessary disappointment).

Action
The ad must not appear again in its current form.  We welcomed Hillarys assurance that future ads would include only images of blinds included in the promotion and would state "on selected blinds" in the body copy.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)