Associated Newspapers has found out to its cost that you upset a Daily Mail at your peril after an ad campaign offering a “free commemorative Jubilee DVD” sparked a flurry of complaints to the ad watchdog.
The Daily Mail, the UK’s self-appointed moral arbiter, ran a TV campaign promising readers “the very best of the Jubilee on one spectacular DVD”, while a press ad pledged the DVD would be ‘free’ with that Saturday’s Mail.
But not only did the press ad fail to mention readers had to collect a number of tokens to collect the DVD, the TV ad voiceover contradicted the footnote, and sparked 48 complaints from disgruntled readers.
In response, Associated claimed it had used a similar technique many times before without complaint, with DVDs and CDs being offered “with” the relevant edition of the Daily Mail, rather than “in” the Daily Mail. The company defended its strategy and said it was surprised by the high number of complaints.
However, the Advertising Standards Authority took a dim view of the campaign, saying that taking both ads in isolation it was not clear enough that readers had to collect coupons. It banned both ads for being misleading.
