Advertisment
The advertisement was seen on the advertisers’ website and detailed information pertaining to a property for sale within the Glasnevin area of Dublin. As part of the online description, one benefit listed was that the property was a mere 28-minute walk from the city Centre.
Complaint
The complainant objected to the advertisement on the grounds that the listed property was not a 28-minute walk to the city centre. Taking the Spire as denoting the city centre, the complainant said that this was in reality 4.1 kilometres from the property and equated to a 50-minute walk approximately. On this basis, the complainant considered the advertising misleading.
Response
The advertisers said that they never intended to mislead parties on any aspect of a property’s description and that they have to be careful with measurements, photographs, features and distances to local amenities.
Despite the fact the Dublin City Council map indicated that North Dublin City starts just after the Tolka River at the Bishop’s Palace in Drumcondra, the advertisers said that they considered the North and South Circular Roads as being the boundaries of the city when describing properties north or south of the Liffey.
They said that once over the North Circular Road, you were into Dublin 1 which was the postal address for North Dublin City and could be walked to in 28-minutes from the listed property.
The advertisers said that the complainant was using the Spire as the centre of Dublin city centre for their example and had not considered any surrounding area of the same Dublin 1 postal area.
Conclusion
Complaint Upheld.
The Complaints Committee considered the detail of the complaint and the advertisers’ response.
The Committee noted that the claim in the advertisement was that the property was a 28- minute walk to the ‘city centre’ and that the reference to city centre applied to the North Circular Road area.
The Committee gave consideration as to what the reasonable person would understand to be the ‘city centre’ and noted that while Dublin City Council described the inner city as being between the Royal Canal and the Grand Canal, they did not have a definition for the ‘city centre’.
The Committee was of the view that a reasonable understanding of ‘city centre’ would be Dublin’s O’Connell Street and its immediate environs. As the reference to ‘city centre’ in the advertisement was to an area outside of the immediate environs of O’Connell Street, the claimed walking time to the ‘city centre’ in the advertisement had the potential to mislead and was in breach of Sections 4.1, 4.4, 4.9 and 4.10 of the Code.
Action Required:
The advertisement must not reappear in its current form.
