PrettyLittleThing under fire again for ‘misleading’ social media advertising

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) found that the fast-fashion etailer released “misleading” adverts between November 23 and November 28, 2023, as reported by the BBC.

This marks the eighth time the retailer has hit the headlines for breaching advertising rules in the last four years.

ASA has reportedly investigated 15 posts on X, formerly konwn as Twitter, made in November 2023, which involved offers for shoppers including discounts of between 30% and 99%.

The BBC reported that the offers had “varying deadlines or no deadlines at all and did not always specify if certain products were excluded from the promotions”.

PrettyLittleThing said its advertising and marketing campaign was “reflective of what their customers wanted and expected”.

ASA is said to have upheld the complaints relating to three main issues, the first being that some ads “misleadingly implied the promotion applied to all products”, despite some being excluded from the discounting.

The second issue was that the ads breached code of conduct rules with “the absence of closing dates from ads, and the inclusion of closing dates in ads when promotional periods were shortened or extended”.

The third breach, ASA said, was that “the ads misleadingly implied that further discounts would not be available when the promotion ended”, despite more discounts being promoted online afterward.

ASA said it had told PLT that its ads should “not state or imply that a promotion included all product lines” if this was not the case.

It added that the fashion etailer must ensure that future ads “state significant conditions to promotions and that qualifications were presented clearly”.

ASA said: “We told them to ensure their ads did not mislead as to the closing date/time of promotions, or imply that discount offers were time-limited or would not be repeated if that was not the case.”

PrettyLittleThing responded to the claims and said their customers were “value-oriented and their advertising and marketing was reflective of what their customers wanted and expected.”

PLT added that it “always tried to include significant conditions to promotions in ads, but sometimes space was limited” and included information “such as end dates and an asterisk with qualifying information where possible”.

It also said that further terms and conditions are available online, which customers are able to review ahead of making a purchase.