ASA bans misleading Emma Mattress ads on “‘independent” mattress review website

How did ads for Emma mattresses on a review website fall foul of the CAP Code for being misleading, when the landing page included information about the website being owned by a subsidiary of Emma?

The question

How did ads for Emma mattresses on a review website fall foul of the CAP Code for being misleading, when the landing page included information about the website being owned by a subsidiary of Emma?

The key takeaway

The owner of Emma Matratzen GmbH t/a Emma Mattress (Emma), a bed brand, has been criticised by the ASA for potentially misleading customers with two YouTube advertisements, which appeared to be for an independent mattress review website, when the website was actually owned and operated by a subsidiary of Emma.

The background

Two paid-for ads for a mattress comparison website, top5bestmattresses.co.uk, were shown on YouTube in May 2023. The ads were:

• a video showing a person in a t-shirt with the text “Top 5”, who then said: “Today, we’ll be testing the UK’s most awarded mattress: the Emma original”. The person then showed an Emma mattress, explained the positive qualities of the mattress and concluded with saying: “Our verdict: we love Emma and everything about it. Try it and tell us how your first nights were with it. See you in the next review”
• a static image showing a person lying on a mattress highlight the different layers, a mattress with an award ribbon above, and a mattress coming out of a box. Below this image was the text: “Exclusive Deals and Coupon Codes – Spring Sales: Up to 55% … compare popular beds brands in 2023. Check out exclusive deals and discount codes … www.top5bestmattress.co.uk/”.

Four complaints were made about the two ads, by consumers who understood that www.top5bestmattress.co.uk, was owned by Emma. The complaints challenged whether the ads made clear their commercial intent.

The development

Emma argued that it was evident that www.top5bestmattress.co.uk belonged to a company owned and controlled by a subsidiary of Emma. While acknowledging that the ads themselves lacked any kind of explanatory text, they highlighted that the landing page of www.top5bestmattress.co.uk included information about it being owned by a subsidiary of Emma. 

However, the complaints were upheld by the ASA and the ads were held to have breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 2.3 (Recognition of marketing materials), and 3.1, 3.3 and 3.9 (Misleading advertising). The ASA considered that both ads would suggest to consumers that www.top5bestmattress.co.uk was an independent mattress review site, which was clearly untrue as it was a subsidiary of Emma. The ASA took into account that there was a disclaimer on the landing page that www.top5bestmattress.co.uk was a subsidiary of Emma, however, they held that this information should have appeared in the ads themselves as this information was material to a consumers’ understanding of the ads and the partiality of the comparison website, thus influencing their consumer decision-making. Moreover, the ASA held that both ads implied that independent reviews of different mattresses and mattress brands could be found at top5bestmattress.co.uk when this was not the case. Therefore, they concluded that the ads omitted material information, did not make clear their commercial intent, and were likely to mislead consumers. 

Why is this important?

The ruling highlights the importance of advertisers making clear their commercial intent. In this case, the consumer could have been led to believe that they were being advertised an independent mattress review website, when it was essentially, an ad for Emma. The fact that the ads were held to be both unrecognisable as marketing materials for Emma and misleading advertising practices, highlights that the ASA will take complaints regarding ads without clear commercial intent seriously and brands should ensure best efforts to avoid misleading consumers. 

Any practical tips?

The key here is transparency. Any company or brand wishing to advertise their products or services must ensure that they do not mislead consumers, that their ads are clearly recognisable as marketing materials for that product or service and that their commercial intent is made clear.

Winter 2023