Watchdog piles pressure on Groupon

Discount site Groupon has been hauled up by the Advertising Standards Authority yet again this week – with two more offers being censored – just days after the watchdog referred the company to the Office of Trading over its continued use of misleading promotions.
The ASA made the Groupon referral after 48 breaches in 11 months. These latest breaches of the advertising code – the company’s 49th and 50th this year – concern a breast enhancement service which fell flat and an Ocado offer which did not actually exist.
The first involved promoted breast enhancement sessions with “microbean energy technology” that promised women would see “typical growth between a quarter and two cup sizes within five to eight weeks”.
But when one woman a woman attended the spa, she was told it would take a greater number of treatments to achieve the growth claim. It transpired the original claim was made on the basis of only six patients, which the ASA ruled “was not sufficient evidence to substantiate the claim”. The promotion has now been banned.
Meanwhile, Waitrose home delivery service Ocado offered a one-year midweek delivery pass “usually priced at £69.99”. The ASA received complaints that the price was misleading because at the time the offer was launched – 28 July – a six-month delivery deal was just £14.99, and there was no annual midweek pass that was “usually priced at £69.99”.
The ASA said: “In the absence of any evidence that compared the value of the promoted pass at £69.99 with an equivalent product, or that demonstrated how this price was calculated, we considered the ‘value’ of the promotional item had not been substantiated and therefore concluded that it was misleading.”
In the summer, advertising expert Iain Connor of law firm Pinsent Masons warned voucher operators to pay particular attention to advertising rules on the availability of products. He said: “The fact that users of these ‘group purchase’ vouchers know that there will be conditions attached does not mean that they will not still have a reasonable expectation of getting what they want at the advertised price without having to study the small print in detail.”
And, earlier this year, the OFT forced Markco Media – the company behind group-buying website Groupola – to sign pledges not to advertise products where there is “a disproportionately inadequate supply”.