Two Lloyds adverts ruled misleading by watchdog

LLOYDS Banking Group has had two of its television adverts withdrawn by the Advertising Standards Authority after it upheld complaints from members of the public.

The watchdog said two of the adverts for the bank's Lloyds TSB brand were "misleading" and ruled the commercials should not be screened again in their current format.

One of the complaints related to an advert for a new "Money Manager" service, which it claimed allowed customers to keep track of their spending - and the second was for an advert for an insurance product which suggested a personal claims consultant would visit them when they made a claim.

In the first instance, a customer was unable to use the service when he made inquiries and was told it was not yet available.

Another customer complained that the insurance advert suggested Lloyds TSB would send customers a personal claims consultant - which, in reality, did not happen when they made a claim. Both complaints were upheld.

The bank, a sister brand to Bank of Scotland, said the Money Manager product was being rolled out and had not been available at that time to the customer when he tried to register in March, despite the advert having run since January.

A spokesman for the ASA said: "The use of the present tense implied Money Manager was a service which was already available to Lloyds customers at the time the ad was broadcast.

"We also considered that, in the absence of any information to the contrary, consumers would be likely to interpret the ad to mean that the service would be available to them as soon as they registered for it.

"However, we understood that, although the service was available to some customers, it was not available to consumers at the time the ad was first broadcast."

A spokeswoman for Lloyds Banking Group said the company was "disappointed" that both adverts sparked complaints.

"The Money Manager TV advert in question was designed to raise awareness that the service had launched and direct viewers to the Lloyds TSB website for more information," she said.

"Furthermore the service was already available to some customers and therefore we believe it was not misleading."

But the bank also admitted that personal claims consultants were available only to customers who had their "Home Solutions" insurance product - but that its claims handlers had discretion to offer a consultant for all claims based upon a number of factors, such as if the claim was for subsidence, or if the policyholder appeared to be in a "distressed or vulnerable" state.It claimed that this was made clear in the on-screen text.

The ASA's report said: "Although we considered the latter part of the on-screen text 'Personal Claims Consultants allocated at the discretion of Lloyds TSB. Applies to Home Solutions' made it clear the service applied to Home Solutions customers we considered the former part of the text contradicted, rather than qualified, the voice-over claim.

"We therefore concluded the ad was misleading."

The Lloyds TSB spokeswoman added: "We are confident our internal processes ensure that a PCC is made available in those cases where a customer needs it most."