Bullet Business

The UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has upheld a complaint against a regional press advertisement by Spreadex’s ShortsandLongs.com

A regional press ad featured with a headline: “Capital punishment?” The body copy stated: “Looking to escape your spread betting firm?  Want an account with tight spreads, fast executions and no re-quotes?  How about free guaranteed stops, which means you will never lose more than is in your account?...”

London Capital Group and CMC Markets challenged whether the ad, and in particular the logo with the text “capital punishment?” denigrated Capital Spreads, a competitor with a logo very similar to that used in the heading of the ad; and CMC Markets challenged whether the ad was misleading, because it implied that Capital Spreads did not offer “tight spreads”, “fast executions” and “no re-quotes”.

For its part, Spreadex said the ad was intended purely as a light-hearted look at the spread betting industry and it had not sought to denigrate Capital Spreads. Also, the company said it had no intention of misleading readers and maintained that the references were solely related to the service offered by ShortsandLongs.com.

The Authority considered that the claim “Capital Punishment” implied Capital Spreads service was punishing customers in some way and discredited their service. It concluded that the ad denigrated Capital Spreads and therefore breached the Code. Also, owing to the close similarity between the headline graphic and Capital Spreads’ logo, and the claim “looking to escape your spread betting firm”, readers were likely to infer that a comparison was being made between Capital Spreads’ service and Spreadex’s Shortsandlongs.com. So the ad was likely to mislead.