“The Advertising Standards Authority [of the United Kingdom] ruled eHarmony’s ad was misleading because it had made an “absolute claim” that suggested a “definitive figure” of marriages based on an extrapolated 2007 online survey. It said the ad also failed to make clear that in 20% of cases it was unable to find a match for people who registered.”
– MarketingWeek, dated 18 November 2009
The “20%” is in their boilerplate rejection message, which has remained unchanged (unimproved?) since eHarmony started in 2000.
It is unknown whether the word “estimated” will be added to the site’s text and advertising materials whether in the United Kingdom, the United States or eHarmony’s other markets.
Here is an excerpt of the ASA’s ruling as per Section 5: Misleading Advertising of their BCAP Television Advertising Standards Code:
1. Upheld
The ASA noted the statistics were obtained by established independent market research and acknowledged that, if the results of the online survey were extrapolated to the whole American population, the evidence seemed to show that 2% of American couples who had married in 2007 were likely to have met through eHarmony. However, we considered that the claim “It’s no surprise that over four million Americans get married each year. But what might surprise you is that 2% of those Americans said they met on eHarmony” implied a definitive figure of marriages between people who met via eHarmony in the past year, not an estimate based on an online survey of 20- to 54-year-olds in 2007. We considered that an estimate was not sufficient to substantiate the absolute claim “2% of those Americans said they met on eHarmony.” We concluded that the ads were likely to mislead.On this point the ads breached CAP (Broadcast) TV Advertising Standards Code Rules 5.1.1, 5.1.2, 5.1.3, 5.2.1 and 5.2.3 (Misleading advertising).
2. Upheld
The ASA monitored the eHarmony site and completed the 258 multiple choice questions needed to complete a registration profile. We found that, in some circumstances the website stated that it would be unable to match the registrants profile with any other users and that they were unable to provide a service. We noted the website stated that this occurred in 20% of cases. We considered that, because the answers to the compulsory multiple choice questions could result in a profile for which no free matches were offered and the service was not provided, the ads were likely to mislead by omitting to make that clear.On this point the ads breached CAP (Broadcast) TV Advertising Code Rules 5.1.1, 5.1.2, 5.1.3, 5.2.1 and 5.2.3 (Misleading advertising).
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