Flash marketing tactics are under the spotlight of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) as it has banned promotional emails from Eurostar with the title “Soak up every second of summer”.
The complainant, who was only able to find one ticket from London to Paris at the advertised price, argued that it was misleading.
The body of the email included large text which read “TREAT YOURSELF TO A EUROPEAN GETAWAY…FROM JUST £39 EACH WAY”.
Eurostar argued that that a total of 39,000 seats had been available at the advertised “from” price across the advertised routes.
It also said it did not know when the complainant searched for a ticket, but that from 12 July onwards the number of available tickets at the stated price for travel to Paris in August and September would have decreased as tickets were sold.
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However, the ASA banned the tactic on the grounds that the message “Treat yourself to a European getaway from just £39 each way…with a summer getaway in August or September” was misleading.
It held that similar promotional claims should not be made unless a “significant proportion of the tickets had not been available at the ‘from’ price.
In a statement the regulator said: “We therefore considered that Eurostar had not demonstrated that a significant proportion of tickets between London to Paris and Paris to London had been available “from” £39 during the promotional period”.
It comes in the wake of a challenging time for the rail firm – which cancelled 30,000 passengers to have the Eurostar journey cancelled on Sunday.
In October last year the train company created a new brand campaign and loyalty programme through reinventing sustainable travel in Europe and promising customers ‘Together we go further’.
