Commisery for online estate agency as watchdog censures TV ads

Online estate agency Purplebricks has amended its television advertising after being censured by the industry’s watchdog.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said two of the ads promoting Purplebricks’ services should not be screen again in their current format.

Screened as part of the agency’s ‘Commisery’ campaign, the ads featured a man shouting into a kitchen cupboard and a woman dropping her head into a cream cake when told Purplebricks did not charge commission.

The ads attracted complaints – some from rival estate agencies – saying the commercials misleadingly implied that Purplebricks did not charge a fee for their service.

ASA said The Charter for Independent Estate and Letting Agents (CIELA), which understood that Purplebricks charged a fee whether a property was sold or not, had also challenged whether the comparison in the ads between Purplebricks’ fee and the commission charged by other estate agents was misleading.

Making its ruling, the watchdog said it considered that the average consumer would understand from the dialogue which stated “They are proper estate agents” and the ads overall, that the service offered by Purplebricks was akin to high street estate agents.

“We considered that the average consumer to whom the ad was directed was likely to be a homeowner and would therefore be more likely to be familiar with the house selling process and would expect estate agents to charge for their services. That was further emphasised by the reference to a fee in the on-screen qualification,” it said.

“On that basis, we considered that consumers would understand that Purplebricks was a commercial business and would charge for their services. We therefore concluded that the ad was unlikely to mislead them into thinking that there would be no fee.”

However, it said that while it considered that the public would likely understand that a fee was payable, people might not understand that the fee was always required to be paid upon commissioning Purplebricks services, even when a property had not been sold.

“We considered the fact that the fee was always payable was material information that would allow consumers to make an informed decision about using Purplebricks services,” it added.

“We acknowledged Purplebricks intended to highlight that they did not charge a commission but instead charged a flat fee. However, we considered that flat-fee payments were relatively new in the housing market.”

Concluding, ASA said: “The ads must not be broadcast again in their current form. We told Purplebricks to ensure that when making a comparison to other fee models in their ads, they made it clear that their flat fee was always payable.”

In a statement, Solihull-based Purplebricks said it had already updated its UK TV adverts to make the points even clearer.

Michael Bruce, group CEO, said: “We are surprised by the ASA judgement on the flat fee wording because prior to air our adverts went through the proper approvals process, including the official clearance body Clearcast who have continued to support their original judgement with the ASA.

“Purplebricks is committed to increasing levels of transparency within the industry, publishing its fixed fee rates on the home page of its website so all consumers from the outset have certainty as to the cost of selling.”

The firm said the new wording has been approved by Clearcast and that while the new text has only been aired for a couple of days, there had been no noticeable impact on the business.

It added that it now had a proactive, regular and positive dialogue with the ASA and all other relevant professional bodies.