The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has been told to pull a television advert by the Advertising Standards Authority which presented a number of misleading claims about the Green Deal initiative.
The television advert in question aired in January and starred architect Oliver Heath. The ASA ruled that the advert misled consumers by implying that savings under the Green Deal scheme would be guaranteed, which is not the case.
The claim was brought forward by Crystal Home Improvements who challenged 10 different aspects of the advert, six of which were upheld.
The advertising watchdog pulled up DECC over a number of claims made in the advert that it could not substantiate. Specifically, a series of statements which implied that savings were certain but when challenged DECC could not guarantee that Green Deal repayments would not exceed savings.
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Defending the wording of the advert, DECC said that it had assumed that energy bills would increase in line with inflation which would mean that “instalments paid on the electricity bill should not exceed the savings which a typical household could expect to make on their energy bills as a result of improvements”.
The ASA also ruled that DECC misleadingly claimed that households who took out typical Green Deal home improvements could “expect to see an average increase of 14% on the value of their property”. The ASA said that DECC failed to provide sufficient evidence to substantiate this claim, only offering regional data which related to a small sample of properties.
The ASA has ruled that the advert must not appear in its current form. In the future, the ASA has advised that DECC ensures all future Green Deal adverts have “sufficient evidence for claims made in marketing communications, including saving claims..not misleadingly imply savings were guaranteed and…not misleadingly give the impression that Green Deal assessments were impartial or give the impression of being a Green Deal testimonial when they related to other schemes or work”.
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