Complaint over hearing aids advert upheld

Two Specsavers Hearcare advertisements that made a price comparison with a Boots Hearingcare offer have fallen foul of the Advertising Standards Authority. It has ruled that they must not appear again in their current form.

Both ads were headed 'At Specsavers, the price of all our hearing aids includes everything you need. At Boots, it doesn't'. Text in ad (a) stated 'We could save you up to £498', and a table compared two products, while ad (b) stated, 'We could save you up to £168 in batteries alone'.

David Ormerod Hearing Centres, trading as Boots Hearingcare, challenged whether the advertisements were misleading as it understood that the Boots product was of a higher specification and performance than the Specsavers product, the price of the batteries was misleading, battery usage could vary and it believed the ads implied Boots Hearingcare customers did not receive the same level of service as those of Specsavers.