Because if there’s room for doubt, and if one person complains to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), you could fall foul of their judgement.
From 1 March this year, the ASA’s remit was extended to include commercial websites on which businesses promote their products.
Earlier this week, Ecademy, a UK-based online community of business owners, was told by the ASA that the advertising for one of their offline social media courses had been misleading.
A dissatisfied Ecademy customer complained to the ASA as they felt the course had not covered all the areas listed in the advert. According to the judgement, published here, Ecademy disagreed, but were unable to provide any documentation to support their case.
Ecademy “considered there was no need to create handouts or other course materials”. As a result, they had no way to substantiate their claims that the course matched the original advert. The result was a judgement against them and an instruction not to use that advert again.
There are two questions that every UK business needs to ask itself. Do the services we deliver match the advertising on our own website? And if a customer complained, how would we defend ourselves?
It’s inevitable that some customers will complain. Some will press their cause by taking their grievances to external authorities, such as the ASA. That’s their right, and it’s yours, as a business, to argue your case.
Don’t think that just because your business is relatively small that it will escape attention. Ecademy is quite well known, but it’s far from a household name. It only took one disgruntled customer to bring their advert to the ASA’s attention.
The ASA is taking its responsibility to police website advertising seriously. On the same day that the complaint about Ecademy was upheld, a further eight websites were found to have breached the advertising code. In five of these cases, it was just one person who complained.
The public already demands a close match between what your website promises and what you actually deliver. The real test of this is whether, having experienced your products, they come back for more.
But the ASA gives them another set of teeth to nip you with if they’re unhappy and you’re unable to support the accuracy of your advert.
