An ad for Moneysupermarket.com which claimed it compared more insurance products than anyone else has been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority after being branded misleading.
The ASA was forced to investigate the DRTV commercial after a complaint from rival Gocompare, which questioned whether the claim could be substantiated.
Moneysupermarket.com said they had used an independent third party to track and measure the insurers compared. The data was gathered according to the third party’s own impartial interpretation of the market and to the Market Research Society’s code of conduct. It said real customers who needed to renew their home insurance were selected at random and included five price comparison sites and two direct insurers.
But as the data was compiled up to five months before the ad appeared in July 2010, it was insufficient to support an absolute claim – especially given that the market for price comparison sites was dynamic and the number of home insurance providers each site compared could change frequently.
The ASA considered that, to show Moneysupermarket.com compared more home insurers than any of their competitors, it needed to demonstrate that it provided a higher number of comparisons each month on average for a sustained period of time.
The watchdog ruled the ad must not be broadcast again in its current form, and warned the company to ensure it held robust and up to date substantiation if they made similar claims in future.
