Coming from the world of Pharmaceutical Marketing I can tell you that a claim "depression suffers said they were cured" would only be accepted if ALL depression sufferers said they were cured. Even then you'd probably have to get all doctors to agree with all patients before you could make such a claim. In other words, it's a claim that can not be made because it is all embracing - and that is against the industry code of practice.
I believe there are two possible ways of thinking about the word "dancers". One is that it is the plural of "dancer", meaning two or more dancers. The other is that it means dancers as a whole. As there are two interpretations and the word can be taken either way there is a good chance that the "man on the Clapham Omnibus" would take it to mean all dancers. Therefore it is reasonable for some people to read "dancers" as "all dancers". This means the statement is false and misleading. You need evidence to substantiate what you are saying in your promotions.
For the sake of argument, let's assume that the word "dancers" in JA's promotion means "the majority of dancers" in an "eight out of ten cats" sense.
Here are the relevant rules;
I believe that JA have portrayed their claim as "generally agreed". Reading what Rocky has said it seems there is a "division of informed opinion". IMHO JA should not be making this kind of claim unless they have conducted a survey of a significant sample of all dancers. And those survey results would need to support their claim.Originally Posted by ASA/CAP Code
N.B. Post marketing surveys where they ask their own customers what they think would not support their claim. Obviously their own customers like what they do. However, the claim is "dancers" not "dancers who attend JA events". A comparison would be to ask M&S customers if they like M&S and then claim "shoppers like M&S" - you would need to ask all shoppers, not just M&S customers, if they like M&S to be able to support this claim.
Am I being pedantic? No more than you would need to be if you were defending a claim in court. In fact, I'm going in to much less detail than a court would require.
Bookmarks