Play.com's offer of the film Pirates of the Caribbean: At
World's End on DVD for just £9.99 was advertised on 28th September
and the offer withdrawn on 1st October, leading to the Advertising
Standards Authority (ASA) ordering it not to repeat the ad.
Play.com, one of the UK's biggest online sellers of music and
films, said that the offer had been so successful that it felt it
had to charge £14.99 from 1st October.
Play.com argued that it had submitted the advert to the magazine
in which it was published before 30th August, and that pre-orders
of the DVD had been available from 20th August to 30th September.
The magazine was published on 28th September.
The DVD was not released until 19th November and the prices were
for pre-orders of copies. The company told the ASA that it had
intended to keep the £9.99 price for most of October but had
changed its plan when demand had been so great.
A consumer complained to the ASA that having seen the advert for
the disc at £9.99 he tried to purchase the DVD but was charged
£14.99. There was small text at the foot of the ad which read:
"Prices correct at time of going to press. Play.com reserves the
right to change prices".
"Because the £9.99 offer appeared in the magazine on 28
September, and the DVD reverted to the price of £14.99 on 1
October, the offer price was available to readers of the magazine
for three days only," said the ASA's adjudication.
"Because the offer price was available to readers for three days
only, but the magazine was on sale throughout October, we concluded
consumers were likely to be disappointed if the advertised price
was not available and therefore considered the ad was misleading,"
it said.
The rulebook of the ASA is called the CAP Code. Its section on
truthfulness says: "no marketing communication should mislead, or
be likely to mislead, by inaccuracy, ambiguity, exaggeration,
omission or otherwise".
The code also has a section on 'availability' and sales
promotions, though the ASA did not make a finding on the basis of
availability.
It says, in relation to promotions, that "promoters should be
able to demonstrate that they have made a reasonable estimate of
likely response and that they were capable of meeting that
response".
The ASA also found that the retailer's use of a recommended
retail price (RRP) of £24.99 also fell foul of the Code, because no
RRP was yet set because the film had not been released yet on
DVD.
"Because the DVD was available only as a pre-order product, and
was not on general release at the time the ad appeared, we
concluded that the RRP did not reflect the price at which the
DVD was generally sold and was therefore not genuine," said the
ASA.
The ASA told Play.com not to repeat the advert. "We advised them
not to advertise offers that were subject to change at short notice
in publications with a long lead-in time and not to use an RRP when
advertising products not yet on general release," it said.
