Agent agrees not to repeat advertisement knocking OnTheMarket

Major westcountry agency Wilkinson Grant has told the Advertising Standards Authority it will not re-use wording following a complaint from a small Exeter-based agency.

A regional magazine ad for Wilkinson Grant stated: “Would You Rather Your Property Be Seen By This Many People .. or .. This Many People?” The ad featured, as a comparison, symbols representing four people alongside symbols representing 32 people.

The text of the ad ran: “Undoubtedly, Rightmove is the most powerful online property portal, but there are other platforms out there capable of putting your property in front of even more buyers. A vast number of estate agents choose to market property on Rightmove and via the lesser known property portal OnTheMarket, which we think is bad news for vendors as they will be at a tremendous disadvantage if their property is not listed on Zoopla, the second most visited property portal in the UK*, and Primelocation … We advertise properties on ALL leading online property sites”.

Small print linked to the asterisk provided the source for the claim related to Zoopla and further small print stated “Illustration for representation purposes only”.

The single-office agency SaleBoards lodged a complaint with the ASA challenging whether the ad misleadingly implied that Wilkinson Grant’s properties would be seen by eight times as many people, whether the ad contained sufficient information to allow consumers to verify the ‘eight times’ claim; and whether the claim “We advertise properties on ALL leading online property sites” was misleading and could be substantiated.

The ASA resolved the issue informally with Wilkinson Grant, which explained that the advertisement in question appeared only once and that similar claims would not appear in any of its future advertising.