Purplebricks has removed an advert published on Facebook that claimed to have sold more than 5,000 properties in the Argyll and Bute area in the West of Scotland after a complaint was informally resolved by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).
The watchdog received a single complaint about claims made by the online agent in the advert featured on the social media platform, as part of the agency’s national ‘Let’s Get You Sold’ campaign.
ASA said: “An ad for Purplebricks on Facebook claimed that 5,212 homes had been sold in Argyll and Bute.
“A complainant challenged whether this could be substantiated. The advertiser agreed to remove the claim from the ad; as such, we considered the matter closed.”
There were more than 800 regional adverts, covering the UK, with “this style of advert”. See story below.
Is this Purplebricks advert misleading or is it clever marketing?
Comments (3)
The problem is that despite the avalanche of misleading ads that the ‘Bricks’ have churned out since their inception, the damage is done. If they were made to spend the same crazy amounts of money admitting their misdemeanors as they spent committing them they would be gone already. However, any company created using falsehoods has a limited life & finally that seems to be getting through to the public who initially believed them.
Another ‘informally resolved’ misleading (cough) Purplebricks advert to add to the string of other transgressions over the years. Will NTSEAT take action to protect law-abiding agents and the public though? Will they (intentionally left blank)!
Not a hope Chris. If PB are to be as clever as they would have us believe, they knew exactly what they were doing with a misleading advert (again) and the risk of being caught and no action being taken.