The Advertising Standards Authority has upheld two complaints against a loans provider.
Bury St Edmunds based Think Finance (UK) Ltd, trading as Sunny, had two adverts which were found to breach advertising rules.
The first ad showed a female puppet character behind a desk, stirring a cup of tea which was branded “PAYDAY LOANS” and speaking on the phone. She said, “I’m sorry, I’m not sure what ‘Sunny rates’ are” and a male voice responded, “They’re rates that can drop the next time you borrow, just by making four on-time payments. Do you have that?” The puppet looked startled and put the call on hold. A sign stating “Who’ll Tell’em NO?” appeared from the ceiling of the office and lights flashed around six different puppets whilst music played. The puppet “Martin” was selected to continue the call and said “Uh, no, we don’t have Sunny rates.” The scene cut to show the man who had been on the other end of the phone hanging up and looking at the Sunny website on his laptop. Voice-over stated, “Introducing Sunny, a new way to borrow up to a thousand pounds when you need it. Learn more about Sunny rates at sunny.co.uk. Good today. Better tomorrow.”
On-screen text shown whilst the man hung up the phone and browsed online stated “Subject to status and a credit assessment. T&Cs apply. 18+”. At the end of the ad, large on-screen text stated “sunny”, “Borrow up to £1000 today” and, appearing later, “visit sunny.co.uk” and “Good today. Better tomorrow”.
The second ad featured a telephone conversation between a male puppet character sitting at a desk bearing the sign “PAYDAY LOANS” and a woman walking along a street. The puppet asked, “Any other questions, madam?”, to which the woman responded “Do you have Sunny flexi-pay? That thing where you pick your repayment schedule?” The puppet said “Er, no … but we can dance!”, and other puppet characters in the background started dancing to music. The scene cut to show the woman hanging up the phone as she walked along the street. In the next shot, she smiled as the screen of her phone displayed the logo for Sunny, and a voice-over stated, “Introducing Sunny, a new way to borrow up to a thousand pounds when you need it. Find out about flexi-pay at sunny.co.uk. Good today. Better tomorrow.”
White on-screen text shown whilst the woman walked along the street stated “Representative 1971% APR. Subject to status and credit assessment. T&Cs apply. 18+”. At the end of the ad, large on-screen text stated “sunny”, “Borrow up to £1000 today” and, appearing later, “visit sunny.co.uk” and “Good today. Better tomorrow”.
The ASA received five complaints. Two complainants challenged whether the first ad breached the Code, because it did not include a representative APR (RAPR) and three complainants, one of whom was a money advice worker, challenged whether the RAPR in the second ad was sufficiently prominent.
The ASA noted that Regulation 6(1)(a)(ii) required credit ads to specify the RAPR if they indicated in any way that any of the terms on which credit was available was more favourable than corresponding terms applied in any other case or by any other creditors. The ad featured a conversation between a potential customer seeking a loan and employees of an unnamed competitor payday loans company. The customer enquired about the availability of “Sunny rates … rates that can drop the next time you borrow, just by making four on-time payments”, and terminated the call when he found that the company did not offer loans on those terms. The ASA considered that the implication of that conversation was that credit was offered by Sunny on terms more favourable than those applied by other creditors, and therefore that the ad included a comparative indication triggering the requirement to include the RAPR. It noted that at the end of the ad the customer was shown visiting the Sunny website on his laptop and considered that that reinforced the comparative aspect of the ad. The ASA said it welcomed Sunny’s willingness to include the RAPR in future versions of the ad.
Because the ad featured a comparative indication without stating the RAPR, the ad regulator concluded that it breached the Code. On that point, ad (a) breached BCAP Code rule 14.11 (Lending and credit).
Regarding the second issue, regulation 6(2) required that the RAPR, as triggered information, be given more prominence in the ad than the information that had triggered the requirement for its inclusion. The trigger (the comparative indication) included spoken as well as visual elements of the ad (the conversation, the termination of the call and the recourse to the Sunny mobile app). The RAPR was shown in small on-screen text that appeared at the bottom of the screen whilst the customer terminated the call and visited the app. The ASA considered that the on-screen text was unlikely to draw viewers’ attention to a greater degree than the scene itself, because the latter formed part of the main visual detail of the ad. It also considered that information communicated orally to viewers would generally be seen as being more prominent than on-screen text at the bottom of the screen, and that on-screen text at the bottom of the screen was therefore unlikely to be sufficiently prominent if the triggering information was orally stated. The ASA acknowledged that each ad should be taken as a whole, but considered that the RAPR was not given greater prominence in the overall presentation of ad (b) than the comparative indication. It therefore concluded that the ad breached the Code.
On that point, ad (b) breached BCAP Code rule 14.11 (Lending and credit). The ads must not be broadcast again in their current form. The ASA told Think Finance (UK) Ltd to ensure that ads which indicated in any way that any of the terms on which credit was available were more favourable than corresponding terms applied in any other case or by any other creditors also included an RAPR, and reminded them that the RAPR needed to be more prominent than the trigger information.