KEY POINTS:
A television advertisement for a Kiwibank credit card with "zilch, zip ... zero" account fees but with a small graphic indicating "service fees may apply" was misleading and confusing to consumers, the Advertising Standards Authority says.
Complainant L. Duley objected to the Kiwibank Master Card Zero advertisement which featured "a bloke in a penguin suit" promoting "New Zealand's first every day credit card with no account fees. Zilch. Zip. Not a sausage. Zero."
As the man is completing the message a graphic appears on the bottom of the screen stating "service fees may apply".
The complainant said the graphic was small, would not be noticed by most people and would mislead people into thinking there were no fees when there were.
Kiwibank said the advertisement clearly referred to "account fees", not fees generally, and the average member of the public would understand that separate account and service fees applied to most credit cards.
The authority's complaints board upheld the complaint.
The majority of the board was of the view that consumers would take the advertisement to mean the card had no fees at all.
It said the "service fees may apply" graphic was too small and too brief. Even if the graphic was noticeable and legible, the claim "no account fees" would be likely to confuse and exploit the consumers' lack of knowledge.
Accordingly the advertisement did not strictly observe the basic tenets of truth and clarity and breached the code for financial advertising.
- NZPA
