Report: Fine Food Digest In Breach Of Advertising Code

In 2005, Fine Food Digest (FFD) published a promotional leaflet, which was sent to advertisers and readers, based on an industry survey commissioned in November 2004, and performed by Apicus Marketing,  a company run by the Proprietor’s son. 1,341 delicatessens and farm shops from its own mailing list were contacted and asked for their assessment of a range of trade magazines. 202 completed questionnaires were returned, a response rate of just 15%

Speciality Food made a complaint to the ASA that we believed the claims made in the campaign to be untrue and in breach of the Advertising Code.

Despite the low response rate, the leaflet stated:

‘98.8% of delicatessens and farm shops read Fine Food Digest - that’s a fact’.
‘Over 98% of all delis and farm shops receive Fine Food Digest and 88.1% read every issue, either cover to cover, or relevant articles.

Fine Food Digest’s campaign then went on to claim:

“This compares with just 75% of delis and farm shops receiving Speciality Food Magazine
And,
24% of all delicatessens do not receive Speciality Food Magazine’.

This leaflet was sent out over the period of approximately a year and was used in a campaign to increase awareness of FFD amongst advertisers by direct mail, on its website and in the magazine itself and to attack Speciality Food’s reputation.

In its report, the ASA noted that:

A)…the data in the leaflet circulated to advertisers had been collected in November 2004, and was not recent enough to use as substantiation for the claims.
B)…the questionnaire was only sent to delicatessens and farm shops that were on the FFD mailing list.
C)… the mailing list was based on the FFD’s own definition of delicatessens and farm shops.
D)… the delicatessens who do not receive Fine Food Digest were not invited to take part in their ‘Nationwide Delicatessen survey’.

Therefore, The ASA considered that the information mailed to the readers and advertisers within the speciality food industry was likely to mislead.

The ASA concluded the leaflet breached:-

A) CAP Code clause 3.1 (Substantiation),
B) CAP Code clause 7.1 (Truthfulness)
C) CAP Code clause 18.1 (Comparisons with identified competitors and/or their products)’.

Publisher, Helen Tudor, said, “Although we were confident of a favourable outcome we’re delighted to finally be able to report these findings.  We feel Fine Food Digest misled advertisers and sought to damage our reputation.” She continues, “We are very proud of our magazine and the progress and support we have had since we launched in July 2002. We have our magazine independently audited every year to ensure our business practice is transparent, and that all our advertisers are assured that what we claim about our circulation and readership is the truth.”

Speciality Food Magazine is the UK’s largest circulated magazine in the fine food industry with an ABC certified circulation of 8732 (1st July 2005 - 30th June 2006). Speciality Food Magazine is mailed to 3502 Delis, 2141 Independent retailers and high class grocers and 1320 Farmshops every issue. The remaining circulation is made up from a mailing list of over 12,500, which is rotated to ensure different people see different issues keeping response fresh for advertisers.

It is interesting to note that in its leaflet, Fine Food Digest stated, ‘if your trade advertising budget extends to using one magazine only – it’s crystal clear which magazine reaches the largest slice of your market’.

Now the truth is out, this is one part of the leaflet we can agree with. We believe the answer is clearly Speciality Food Magazine. Given that the ASA have revealed just how misleading and inaccurate FFD’s claims are, we wonder whether its advertisers feel that they got good value for their money?