ASA bans Wickes kitchen ad

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned a Wickes kitchen sale advertisement for being ‘misleading’.

The advert appeared on the Wickes website on May 9, describing a sale of 50% off kitchen units.

The ASA discovered that the sale period, which ran from March 29 to May 29 this year – a total of 61 days – was longer than the non-sale period of 28 days prior to this.

In addition, between August 30, 2016, and May 9, 2017, when the ad was seen, there were 79 days when the products were at ‘full price’, compared with 138 days of the 50%-off promotion.

In light of this, the ASA ruled that the higher prices were not the “usual selling prices” for the units at the time the advert appeared, adding that it was therefore misleading.

Wickes said it believed it had not breached the CAP Code and argued that other retailers in the industry adopted similarly longer sales periods in relation to kitchens, because of the length of the customer journey when making a significant purchase.

The ASA further ruled that the ad must not appear again in its current form and advised Wickes to ensure its future savings claims represented “genuine savings against the usual selling prices of its products”.

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