Advertisment
The advertisement was seen on the advertisers’ own website and featured imagery which depicted the various style of alarms customers could purchase. Above this was an image of a ‘burglar’s’ outstretched hand wearing a black, fingerless glove.
Large, red font at the top of the web page stated, “Get the alarm burglars fear the most”. Further text beneath the imagery detailed the price of a home security system and install as costing only €49 and invited customers to get a quote.
Complaint
The complainant considered the advertisement to be misleading as they said that the statement that the alarm was feared the most by burglars was not backed up by evidence in the form of research or statistics.
Response
The advertisement was seen on the advertisers’ own website and featured imagery which depicted the various style of alarms customers could purchase. Above this was an image of a ‘burglar’s’ outstretched hand wearing a black, fingerless glove.
Large, red font at the top of the web page stated, “Get the alarm burglars fear the most”. Further text beneath the imagery detailed the price of a home security system and install as costing only €49 and invited customers to get a quote.
The complainant considered the advertisement to be misleading as they said that the statement that the alarm was feared the most by burglars was not backed up by evidence in the form of research or statistics.
In order to give context to their response, the advertisers wished to emphasise that as an organisation they believed strongly in the work of the ASA in upholding the Code of Advertising Standards in Ireland and considered that this work was increasingly important from both a commercial and a social perspective.
The advertisers said that they began working with a new agency last year to create a campaign to help them communicate their proven market leading offerings. They said that this was in terms of their response times, with their average response time being less than 15 seconds from the alarm being activated, and that this was coupled with the research they had previously done which demonstrated that a house with a PhoneWatch alarm was four times less likely to be burgled compared to the national burglary rate. For further details, they directed readers to their website(1).
The advertisers said that they both agreed that the 15 second response time was a fact that they needed to build into their work as a core reason to believe, but they said that the agency were very probing around the ‘four times less likely to be burgled’ offering and they wanted to know the ‘why?’ behind this statement; as in why were burglars put off by a PhoneWatch alarm.
The advertisers explained that initially the agency looked to conduct research with convicted burglars within the prison service to see if they could get an insight, however, while investigating this directly with a third-party research company, they realised this was not possible given the rules and regulations around carrying out research with prisoners. For more details about this, the advertisers directed readers to the Irish Prison Service website(2) and explained in summary that the research would have to be of value to the prison service directly in terms of its outputs.
The advertisers said that the work around the agency found was to hold informal research with prison officers with whom they conducted three interviews. They clarified that these were done on a strictly informal and off the record basis given the nature of their work and the aforementioned rules but said that as they were looking for insight at the time, this felt like no compromise at all.
The advertisers explained that it was from these interviews that they found, in their opinion, that burglars, especially those with any experience, tended to try and avoid PhoneWatch alarms as whilst none of them knew about the 15 second response time, they did all believe that PhoneWatch contacted the key holder and Gardaí very quickly. They said that within these interviews, they had a verbatim saying that burglars feared PhoneWatch alarms more than others. The advertisers said that this would support the PhoneWatch data proving homes with a PhoneWatch alarm were four times less likely to be burgled compared to the national burglary rate.
The advertisers said that this insight fed directly into the idea of taking the campaign from the burglar’s perspective and indeed this indirectly led to the creative territory of the Burglar Bootcamp. They explained that the line ‘Get the Alarm Burglars Fear the Most’ came later but again was informed by the informal research.
The advertisers clarified that media for the campaign was planned to be video-on-demand (VOD), digital and out-of-home (OOH) so did not require clearance, however the advertisers said that their agency sought clearance on the main scripts as a matter of good practice. They sought this through the media’s clearance department and the final work, including the end line ‘Get the alarm burglars fear most’, was approved. They said that when radio was later planned and written, this too was sent to the media’s clearance department and was cleared.
In relation to the specific Code sections referenced by the Executive, the advertisers contended that the claim was true and said that their campaign was based on facts, albeit off the record interviews, but also supported by PhoneWatch’s burglary rate research previously mentioned. They said that traditional substantiation based on research appeared impossible, but it did not make their claim any less true.
(1) https://www.phonewatch.ie/4times/
(2) https://www.irishprisons.ie/information-centre/prison-based-research/
Conclusion
Complaint Upheld.
The Complaints Committee considered the detail of the complaint and the advertisers’ response.
The Committee noted that while traditional substantiation based on research did not appear obtainable in this situation, the Code required that a claim that any product is superior to others should only be made where there is clear evidence to support the claim. Wording which implies superior or superlative status – such as, “number one”, “leading”, “largest”, or similar – should be capable of substantiation with market share data or similar proof (4.33).
The Committee considered that the claim “get the alarm burglars fear the most” was a superlative, absolute, claim. They considered that as the substantiation available was anecdotal, the claim should have been qualified and not presented as an absolute claim. In the absence of such evidence, the Complaints Committee considered that the advertisement had the potential to mislead consumers and was therefore in breach of the Code at sections 4.01, 4.04, 4.09, 4.10, 4.31, 4.32 and 4.33.
ACTION REQUIRED:
The advertisement must not reappear in the same form unless qualified or unless substantiation is available.
