A very recent decision by the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) regarding an advertisement by Renault, the French car manufacturer, regarding the efficiency of one of its latest electric powered car models has reiterated the ASA’s position regarding clear use of legal disclaimers. The ASA was concerned that the legal disclaimer that Renault used to qualify the claims within one of its recent adverts was insufficiently clear simply because readers of the disclaimer were “unlikely to understand” the qualification.
The Advertisement
The claim by Renault was that the “well-to-wheel efficiency of a Renault Fluence Z.E. will help reduce CO2 emissions by at least 90% compared to a current diesel model”, the small print stated that the comparison was made on the basis of a “French average electric mix”. Renault’s alleged intention was that this should mean that the efficiency saving should be compared, by reference to the “electric mix” in France, where because nuclear power is prevalent, electricity and its use results in relatively little CO2 emissions. Had Renault compared it to the UK’s “average electric mix”, the well-to-wheel reduction (how much fuel it takes to drive a car a given distance) would have been considerably less because the creation of electricity uses more fossil fuels in the UK.
In Renault’s defense, Renault claimed that the advert was part of an European wide campaign, and it made sense that a European wide campaign made reference to the French average electricity generation mix. Renault claims that because the sale of Renault vehicles in France was likely to be far greater than in the UK, it was not misleading to make reference to the French source of electricity being the average mix. Furthermore, they said that they had qualified the claim in the footnote, ensuring that anyone reading the advert and reading the disclaimer should not be mislead.
ASA’s Conclusion
The ASA concluded, however, that although there were differences between the French and UK average electricity generation mixes, this fact was not something that was going to be immediately obvious to the average UK consumer. Furthermore, a reference to this would be insufficiently clear, because UK viewers of that disclaimer were unlikely to understand “the difference between electricity generating mixes in France and the UK and how that would affect CO2 savings in different countries”. This meant that it was likely they would assume that the disclaimer was representative of the typical savings possible in the UK. The ASA concluded that the ad breached Cap Code Clauses 3.1 (substantiation) and 7.1 (truthfulness). Renault was informed that the advert must not appear again in its current form.
The Moral
This decision underlines the importance of ensuring that, when relying on disclaimers in order to qualify an adverts claims, those disclaimers are clear and that the circumstances that those disclaimers rely upon are immediately obvious to the average UK reader. Failure to do this, will mean that advertisers are put in breach of the CAP Code, and may have their adverts banned from appearing. Obviously, this could be a very expensive consequence.
- Richard Dickinson and Alex Watt
