Lettings firm's claim is banned by advertising watchdog

A lettings firm which used its success in the Sunday Times awards in its advertising has been reprimanded by the advertising watchdog.

IMS Lettings in Derby said that it was “Derby’s No. 1 Award Winning Agent”. The advert featured an image of an award and the text: “Lettings Agency of the Year 2010 The Sunday Times, The Times finalist”.

The awards, sponsored by the Sunday Times and Times, are run by Peter Knight’s Estate Agency Events firm.

But the IMS Lettings advert led to a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority on the grounds that it was misleading and could not be substantiated.

IMS told the watchdog that they had been recognised for many years as Derby’s top letting agent.

They were dominant in the Derby marketplace in every area of business. They said they were able to ascertain this by conducting mystery shops on competitors, independent board surveys and emails from competitors to prospective landlords confirming the number of lets per month for all major competitors. They said they had let three times the number of their nearest competitor.

They stated that they had more branches, more staff, more cars, more ‘To Let’ and ‘Let By’ boards and had more properties on Zoopla, Rightmove and on the individual letting agency websites. However, the ASA said they did not provide documentary evidence to support these statements.

IMS did provide evidence to demonstrate that they had won a property services directory website award 2012 and were shortlisted for the “Best Medium Lettings Agency Award”. IMS said they would also remove the claim “Derby’s No.1 Letting Agent” from their website and letterheads.

The ASA welcomed the changes IMS said it would make to its website and letterheads, but upheld the complaint.

The ASA said that the claim “Derby’s No.1 Award Winning Agent” would either be understood to mean that IMS had won the largest number of awards (compared to other agents in Derby) or as a claim that the agency had won at least one award and also had let the most number of properties (compared to other agents in Derby) over a reasonable period of time.

Because of the ambiguous way in which the claim was presented, the ASA said it had the potential to mislead.

No evidence was supplied to demonstrate that it had won more awards than any other agent in Derby. While IMS believed the “No.1” element of the claim could be supported by having more company vehicles, staff and branches, the ASA said this was not indicative of how many properties they let in comparison to their competitors.

Whilst IMS believed they had the larger number of properties to let listed online, this did not demonstrate how many properties both IMS and their competitors had successfully let, said the ASA.

It said that as not all agents put up boards outside properties, counting Let board presence was not an adequate method of substantiating a claim about market leadership. It also did not consider mystery shopping to be independent or accurate.