Banned, the Dyson ad that rubbished its smaller rival
DYSON has been found guilty of making misleading claims about a hugely successful cordless cleaner made by a smaller British rival.
The company founded by Sir James Dyson ran an aggressive advertising campaign designed to rubbish the Gtech AirRam.
It produced a newspaper advert and a YouTube video which appeared to show the cheaper AirRam was inferior to its own DC59 cleaner.
But the Advertising Standards Authority said the tests were not a valid comparison and so gave a misleading impression. As a result, the watchdog has banned Dyson from running the ‘ attack ad’ and its claims.
Gtech’s AirRam has sold more than 500,000 since it was launched in 2012. Its popularity means the company’s turnover has grown from around £4million a year to more than £65million.
But its success appears to have caused real angst for Dyson, which has made a series of attacks designed to undermine the AirRam. Dyson was once the underdog in the vacuum cleaner market and faced huge challenges to overcome dominant German rivals such as Bosch. Now it is the industry giant and has used its marketing and financial muscle to try and stamp on its small British competitor.
The AirRam costs £199, compared with an offer price of £299 for the Dyson V6 Animal, the new name for the DC59.
The ASA upheld four complaints made by Gtech over Dyson’s campaign. The adverts appeared to show the Dyson was better at removing fine dust from a hard floor with one sweep, backed up with a claim that ‘Dyson has over ten times the suction of Gtech’.
But the ASA said these tests and others commissioned by Dyson failed to conform to standards set by the International Electrotechnical Commission.
Gtech also provided independent data which it said demonstrated the AirRam performed better than the Dyson when clean- ing carpets and hard floors. The ASA said the Dyson tests ‘were not sufficiently robust to substantiate the implied claim that the DC59’s pick-up performance was superior … across all surfaces’.
The watchdog said Dyson was wrong to imply its higher suction power automatically meant it performed better – because other factors, such as nozzle design and the spinning brush are also important.
The ASA ruling, published today, was welcomed by Gtech founder Nick Grey who said: ‘The main benefit of the outcome is clarity for the general public. Suction power does not equal cleaning performance and comparisons should be made in the most reliable way.’
Dyson said Black Friday weekend saw a ‘234 per cent year- on-year growth to our cordless sales’.
It claimed tests show its devices pick up 70 per cent more dirt than the Gtech AirRam.