The Advertising Standards Authority has dismissed a complaint against the RSPCA in Scotland, finding it had taken “reasonable steps” to make it clear that it operates in England and Wales in its Christmas appeal advert.
The ASA had received one complaint from someone who had seen the advert in Scotland and thought it was not made clear enough that the RSPCA does not operate in Scotland. The complainant felt the advert misled donors.
RSPCA and Scottish SPCA have a memorandum of understanding requiring them to make it clear where they operate, and the RSPCA told the ASA that it prevents adverts being shown in Scotland where possible.
The charity said that its telephone operators taking donations had been trained to make the RSPCA's remit clear. “If potential donors who telephoned the number in the ad gave a Scottish address, the telephone operator was prompted to inform the caller that the RSPCA helped animals in England and Wales and to check they were happy to proceed,” the charity said in its defence.
In its assessment the ASA said: “There was nothing in the ad's content that implied the RSPCA operated in Scotland and that those making a donation were likely to do so out of a desire to stop animal cruelty regardless of geographical location."
The regulator said that because of the reasonable steps taken by the charity it felt the ad was not likely to mislead.
In 2009 SSPCA ran highly controversial adverts saying “The RSPCA won’t save me” to distinguish between the two organisations. Michelle Grub, head marketing and communications at the charity spoke to Fundraising magazine about the impact it had.
Nuffield Health advert cleared
The ASA also found in favour of Nuffield Health’s website claim about using ECG screening to pick up heart disease.
A doctor had challenged whether the claim “an ECG and exercise ECG can pick up significant early heart disease” was misleading because of the possibility of false results.
Nuffield Health told the ASA that the tests are widely used to pick up heart disease and that “all of their investigations were reviewed and interpreted by consultant cardiologists”.
The ASA dismissed the complaint, concluding that consumers would understand that all health screening tests are subject to limitations and as such the advert was not misleading.
