Five property firms rapped by Advertising Standards Authority

An unprecedented five property companies including three agents and two developers had their adverts referred to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) during the run-up to the New Year. TV – Birch’s Group London-based park homes developer used photographs of an old site in a TV ad to promote a new development, which the ASA considered ‘misleading’. Birch’s Group, which has built and owns sites across the UK including in Hampshire, Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire and Somerset, used images and footage from one of its Cambridgeshire sites to illustrate its Little London Park development in the TV ad. The company told the ASA that it ‘believed that the images and footage shown in the ad were an accurate representation of properties customers could purchase at their Little London Park site’. The ASA disagreed, saying it considered TV viewers would interpret the ad to mean that the featured properties were available to purchase at the Little London Park site and that they were ready for viewing at the advertised open weekend event promoted within the ad. The ASA also noted that one of the properties featured in the ad was ‘vastly different’ to the property available at the open weekend event. Online – Whitegates…