By Tony Smith for The
Register.
This article has been reproduced with permission.
The UK retail chain, part of DSG International, has been told
not to show the ad on TV again. This is the second time this year
the ASA has chastised PC World on the same issue.
This time round, the ad featured an Advent 7000A notebook priced
at £349. Three people who saw the ad told the ASA the product had
already sold out in the local PC World stores before the spot had
even been broadcast.
PC World said it had 2000 laptops available a significant
quantity and adequate to meet anticipated demand, the chain told
the ASA. However, the ASA ruled that the complaints showed PC World
"did not have adequate stock" of the product at the time the ad was
broadcast.
The ASA rejected one complaint from a buyer who had claimed he
was told the laptop was part of a more expensive bundle he
had simply been misinformed by local PC World staff, the chain
said. Yes, that's rather poor customer service, but it is outside
the ASA's remit.
However, the ads watchdog upheld a third complaint which
objected to PC World's characterisation of the laptop's 40GB hard
drive as "huge", a statement which the ASA ruled "exaggerated the
technical specifications" of the low-cost computer.
PC World was ordered not to run the ad again in its current
form. That's hardly a compelling sanction: since the low-price deal
is now past, it's unlikely to do so in any case.
In January this year, the ASA ruled PC World has "misled"
consumers by running an ad for product which it apparently had
insufficient stock to meet demand. PC World had "not shown that it
had made a reasonable estimate of demand based on previous similar
promotions, or that sufficient stock of the product was available
to meet that demand", the ASA ruled at the time.
An ASA spokeswoman told us the organisation has no hard and fast
rules on deciding when an advertiser becomes classed as a 'repeat
offender', but it's typically three distinct instances of the same
complaint. In such circumstances, she said, the organisation would
seek to work with the company concerned before imposing such
sanctions as requiring all ads to be fully cleared before
publication or broadcast, and ultimately rising to a potential
prosecution under Trading Standards legislation.
© The Register
2006
