Play.com's three-day bargain breached advertising code

Play.com's offer of the film Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End on DVD for just £9.99 was advertised on 28th September and the offer withdrawn on 1st October, leading to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ordering it not to repeat the ad.

Play.com, one of the UK's biggest online sellers of music and films, said that the offer had been so successful that it felt it had to charge £14.99 from 1st October.

Play.com argued that it had submitted the advert to the magazine in which it was published before 30th August, and that pre-orders of the DVD had been available from 20th August to 30th September. The magazine was published on 28th September.

The DVD was not released until 19th November and the prices were for pre-orders of copies. The company told the ASA that it had intended to keep the £9.99 price for most of October but had changed its plan when demand had been so great.

A consumer complained to the ASA that having seen the advert for the disc at £9.99 he tried to purchase the DVD but was charged £14.99. There was small text at the foot of the ad which read: "Prices correct at time of going to press. Play.com reserves the right to change prices".

"Because the £9.99 offer appeared in the magazine on 28 September, and the DVD reverted to the price of £14.99 on 1 October, the offer price was available to readers of the magazine for three days only," said the ASA's adjudication.

"Because the offer price was available to readers for three days only, but the magazine was on sale throughout October, we concluded consumers were likely to be disappointed if the advertised price was not available and therefore considered the ad was misleading," it said.

The rulebook of the ASA is called the CAP Code. Its section on truthfulness says: "no marketing communication should mislead, or be likely to mislead, by inaccuracy, ambiguity, exaggeration, omission or otherwise".

The code also has a section on 'availability' and sales promotions, though the ASA did not make a finding on the basis of availability.

It says, in relation to promotions, that "promoters should be able to demonstrate that they have made a reasonable estimate of likely response and that they were capable of meeting that response".

The ASA also found that the retailer's use of a recommended retail price (RRP) of £24.99 also fell foul of the Code, because no RRP was yet set because the film had not been released yet on DVD.

"Because the DVD was available only as a pre-order product, and was not on general release at the time the ad appeared, we concluded that  the RRP did not reflect the price at which the DVD was generally sold and was therefore not genuine," said the ASA.

The ASA told Play.com not to repeat the advert. "We advised them not to advertise offers that were subject to change at short notice in publications with a long lead-in time and not to use an RRP when advertising products not yet on general release," it said.