Misleading by Omission and so say the Advertising Standards Authority
EXCLUSIVE
SDC have misled over 50,000 household and businesses across Shepway by omission.
On May 18th Shepwayvox ran this story Misleading by Omission. It was about the lifeline advert ran in Shepway Today.
Shepway Today is overseen by SDC’s Head of Communications, Mark Luetchhford.
We asked you the members of the public to complain to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), as we believed that the advert was ‘misleading by omission‘ and you did by the shed load. We are grateful to all of you. Thank you. You are wonderful people.
ASA have made a decision regarding the advert and sent many responses to you, who live across Shepway. So we quote from the ASA’s response.
“We have considered your complaint and think you have a valid point. With a view to acting quickly, we’ll instruct the advertiser [SDC] to ensure that their future ads state the correct price and any other non-optional costs and charges and we will get an assurance from them that they will make these changes.”
So in short they did mislead by omission. Are you surprised?
ASA go on to say:
‘once we’ve resolved your complaint, basic information including the advertisers’ name and where the ad appeared will be published on our website, www.asa.org.uk. If the advertisers don’t co-operate with us, we may have to think about other ways to resolve your complaint, including conducting a formal investigation that involves the ASA Council. If that happens, we’ll contact you again.‘
So this advert went out to over fifty thousand (50,000) plus households and businesses across Shepway. In short SDC misled all of us who received a copy.
Shepway District Council’s intended audience was the elderly, the infirm, the frail, the disabled and the vulnerable. To mislead this group is reprehensible, disgusting and deplorable behaviour by Mr Luetchford and his team at SDC. We hope they will make a public apology and in the future check the facts before they put out any future adverts.
So not only do Shepwayvox believe SDC’s communications team are a bunch of clowns for omitting the facts, so do the Advertising Standards Authority.
If SDC have stooped this low by misleading the elderly, it makes us wonder what else they may well have misled us the residents of Shepway over.
Answers on a postcard to shepwayvox@riseup.net
Shepwayvox
“Our rulings (adjudications) are a transparent record of our policy on what is and isn’t acceptable in advertising.”
“We publish our rulings here every Wednesday (available to the media under embargo from Monday). Rulings generally remain on the site for five years, although some may be available for longer if they are being used as part of CAP’s advice materials for advertisers.” ( https://www.asa.org.uk/Rulings/Adjudications.aspx )
The full ruling against SDC’s misleading advert should appear on or around 8th June.