Business claiming to be no.1 in Ireland etc

EPjnr

Hi,

Just a quick query relating to some businesses claiming to be this that or the other eg) 'biggest supplier of **** in Ireland' or 'No.1 seller of *** in the west' etc etc .

My question is, is there any regulation in this area, can any business claim to be anything they want?

Thanks.

jimmii

They would need to be able to offer some sort of evidence to support it. Plenty of sales data out there they can use to back up such claims.

Gloomtastic!

If they advertise the fact that they are blah, blah, blah then it has to be legal, decent, honest and truthful.

IAPI are the advertising watchdogs and used to have quite a bit of clout with media owners in Ireland.

scwazrh

Gloomtastic! wrote: »

If they advertise the fact that they are blah, blah, blah then it has to be legal, decent, honest and truthful.

What about all the vans you see around that say " specialist in xyz ":D

Peterdalkey

Salesman's Puffs is what they were known as back in the day. It means nothing except to the gullible. Many would feel that the gullible get no more than they deserve!

EPjnr

Ok so if a business were to claim that they are no.1 ***** in Ireland because they genuinely believe they are, is it up to them to prove it or the advertising watchdogs to prove otherwise if they stumble upon these claims? And in a case where it actually turned out that the were no.2 etc what would the penalties be in this case?

Gloomtastic!

EPjnr wrote: »

Ok so if a business were to claim that they are no.1 ***** in Ireland because they genuinely believe they are, is it up to them to prove it or the advertising watchdogs to prove otherwise if they stumble upon these claims? And in a case where it actually turned out that the were no.2 etc what would the penalties be in this case?

If they are advertising the fact in the mainstream media - TV, radio or newspapers/magazines then contact IAPI with your complaint. They will look at your complaint and if they think there is a case to answer, they will ask the advertiser to provide evidence.
Alternatively, you can take the Michael O'Leary approach and advertise the fact that they are lying and get them to respond to the allegations.

Peterdalkey

without specifying the exact criteria, such claims are just blowing one's own trumpet and are generally unable to be proven or refuted. I could print a broadsheet newspaper 5mm longer and wider than the regular broadsheet format and then claim to publish Ireland's Biggest/Largest newspaper... and it would be true!!

jmcc

Used to see it a lot with webhosting. Small one man operations with less than seven domains hosted on their nameservers used to claim to be Ireland's leading webhoster. Luckily it is not so common now as the market has matured.

Regards...jmcc