“People die of food poisoning” – misleading holiday claims advert pulled after watchdog ruling
A claims management company has withdrawn a YouTube advert designed to generate holiday sickness claims after the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled that it was misleading.
It is the latest front in the battle against sickness claims being waged by the Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA), which lodged the complaint.
The advert was in the form of a “breaking news” video which warned viewers that “alarmingly, people do die from food poisoning”.
The firm which owns the website agreed to withdraw the video in advance of the ASA adjudication, despite saying it had not received any complaints.
The ASA ordered the firm not to mislead people about the number of deaths relating to holiday sickness, the level of protection for consumers and the likelihood of their claim succeeding.
Ruling that the advert must not appear again in its current form, the ASA told the claims management company “to ensure they held adequate evidence to substantiate objective claims in future”.
In the video, which appeared on the TheAccidentGuys YouTube channel, a man described as a “correspondent live from Spain” told viewers: “Last week we reported on the increase in the number of holidaymakers who come down with some form of general holiday sickness, generally attributed to foodborne illness.”
The man said the World Health Organisation (WHO) had revealed that “a staggering 351,000 deaths up to 2010 are related to food-borne illness, with 52,000 deaths caused by bacteria salmonella, and 37,000 deaths caused by the bacteria e-coli”.
ABTA complained about the advert, in particular the claims about “food-borne illness”, the idea that people should contact the advertiser for statistical reasons and whether the burden of proof was with the tour operator under European regulations.
The ASA found that consumers were likely to understand from the video that the WHO figures related to holiday sickness, while in fact they had a “heavy focus on developing countries” and the 52,000 food-related deaths related to “the bacterium which caused typhoid fever”.
The watchdog said consumers “might feel an obligation to contact the advertiser” because of the reference to “being formally recorded for the purpose of statistical analysis”.
Despite the reference to “greater protection” for travellers under the European regulations, the ASA said the “legislation underpinning the law relating to holiday sickness claims had not changed in the period preceding February 2017, when the ad was seen”.
The watchdog also disagreed with firm that the case law on holiday claims supported the statement that the burden of proof lay with the tour operator or the law made it more likely a claim would be successful.
The firm said that they had not received any complaints about the advert.
The ASA recorded: “They did not agree with the points raised by the complainant, but saw the possibility that the message in the ad might on some occasions have been misconstrued.”
The ASA ruled that the rules on misleading advertising and substantiation had been breached.
Article by Nick Hilborne of Legal Futures.