Updated Help Note on price claims in utilities marketing

16 March 2007

With the race on to offer the cheapest prices to customers, it has never been more important to ensure that utilities ads are crystal clear.  Since we last updated the Help Note in 2003, two key innovations have taken place in the utilities market: price freeze schemes and switching sites.  The updated Help Note gives marketers the information they need to ensure advertisements for  those products comply with the Code. 

“Price Freeze” products have proved extremely popular.  They offer consumers an opportunity to fix their prices for a set period, guarding them against price rises.  Ads for the products, though, have fallen foul of the Code by not mentioning significant conditions such as availability and extra costs.  As the new Help Note explains, when advertising a “Price Freeze” product, advertisers should consider:

  • all significant conditions that apply to “price freeze” products, for example the date to which or from which frozen prices will be available;
  • whether certain customers are excluded or whether the product has limited availability.  If so, that should be clear;
  • whether, by referring to a competitor’s recent price rise, marketers misleadingly imply that they have not implemented their price rises and
  • which rates consumers are fixing at.  For example, it should be clear whether consumers are signing up to a marketer’s new (higher) rates.

Switching Sites were created to help customers compare prices across the utilities sector.  The Help Note explains that ads for those sites should ensure they do not use claims such as “independent” and “comprehensive” if their recommendations are influenced by commercial relationships.

The Help Note reflects the changes in marketing techniques used to promote utilities services as well as the decisions made by the ASA.  Marketers need to be aware of how the Code will be applied to these types of claims.

The basic principles of the Help Note remain the same: savings claims should not be exaggerated; terms and conditions and qualifying statements should be clear.  The Help Note outlines how the code applies to Dual Fuel offers and VAT as well as how the law relates to price indications.

As always, the Copy Advice team is happy to advise marketers in this, and any other, sector.

Download the Help Note on Price Claims in Utilities Marketing.