Express Mobiles breached advertising rules on
truthfulness more than once in the short advert and also broke its
rules on the use of customer databases.
Express had sent customers of the Orange mobile phone network a
text message which said "ORANGE CUSTOMER: YOU HAVE BEEN SELECTED
FOR A COMPLETELY FREE PHONE. 1ST COME 1ST SERVED. CALL NOW... ". It
had paid other companies for the phone numbers to which it sent the
message.
Callers to the phone number listed discovered that they only
qualified for the advertised free phone if they signed a new mobile
phone contract. They also discovered that the advert was not from
Orange but from Express.
Recipients complained that the advert was misleading when it
said that the phone was free, but the company claimed that because
it offered a cheque rebate system to cover line rental costs, the
phone was effectively free.
The ASA found that the 'free' claim was misleading. "The ASA
considered that the text message did not make clear that consumers
would have to take out a new 18-month contract to take up the offer
of the free phone," said its ruling. "We considered that that
information was necessary to ensure recipients had a full
understanding of the promotion and we concluded that the
promotional text message was misleading."
The advert was also censured by the ASA for not making it clear
who the sender of the message was, following recipient complaints
about its anonymity.
The ASA made its own complaints about the advertiser's use of
customer databases, unprompted by recipient concerns.
Express said that it had bought the list of names and numbers to
whom the message was sent from a number of companies selling such
data. It claimed that it had confirmed, as far as it was able, that
the people owning the numbers had opted in to receive
marketing.
The ASA rejected that explanation. "We considered that, in the
absence of any information to the contrary, the text message was
unsolicited because recipients did not seem to have an active
relationship with Express Mobiles, nor were they customers of
Express Mobiles but of Orange," said the ruling. "We therefore
concluded that the text message breached the Code by being
unsolicited and by not identifying the sender or including an
opt-out option."
The ASA has a section of its Code of Conduct dedicated to the
use of customer databases and the issue of consent from message
recipients.
"We told Express Mobiles to include significant conditions in
future message offers and to obtain explicit consent from
recipients before sending text messages," said the ruling. "We
reminded them that they should identify themselves and provide a
clear and simple means for recipients to opt-out of receiving
future messages."
