The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has partially upheld a complaint against Octopus Energy, made by rival British Gas.
The Octopus Energy marketing drive ran across social media, website landing pages, radio, billboard and email formats. One of the ads was challenged on the basis it featured a comparison with an identifiable competitor. According to the CAP and BCAP codes, comparisons with identifiable competitors are required to be verifiable.
The ASA assessed whether further information was easily accessible to consumers, stating that the social media ads contained a learn more button. One of the ads being investigated featured a link to an empty page. However, the ASA said it acknowledged the firm had taken steps to prevent it happening again.
It upheld the motion to ban the Facebook ad, the website landing page and email ad ruling that they “did not include, or adequately direct consumers to, information to allow them to understand the comparisons made and therefore breached the Code”.
The ASA upheld a second motion against the adverts, stating that the ads were misleading to consumers. Copy on the adverts read: “Most homes would save with Octopus”.
On one of the social posts, a further claim, “Most homes could save with Octopus,” appeared.
Subscribe to Marketing Beat for free
Sign up here to get the latest agency-related news sent straight to your inbox each morning
According to the regulator, it understood that consumers would conclude from the claims that energy bills would be cheaper for most households if they were to switch to Octopus.
Investigating the claim, the watchdog found “most homes could or would potentially save money”.
Additional claims read: “We’re generally the cheapest or near enough; in fact, 9 out of 10 Octopus customers pay less than they could with any other large supplier on the same product.”
On this basis, the watchdog found that the claims were based on the percentage of customers on an SVT, which was priced lower than other large suppliers. It added that other types of tariffs, such as a fixed rate tariff, could be cheaper with another supplier.
Further text read: “Octopus is the only large supplier to price meaningfully below the Ofgem Energy Price Cap” and “always below price cap prices”.
The ASA said it understood the claims only took SVTs into account. Therefore, the ASA ruled that the ads were misleading and must not appear again in its current form.
