Egg - Bad advice in New Woman mag

fay144

I bought New Woman mag this week, which contains an 'article' called 'Money Saving Tips your Dad Didn't Tell You', or similar. I read this once, and then pointed it out to my boyfriend, and it was only on this second reading that I noticed the 'sponsored by Egg' small print.

Among the advice given was 'Who wants to be a tart? Switching credit cards all the time will get you a bad rep! Once you have moved to a 0% for 6 months card then stay there'. There was something completely incomprehensible about pensions, and another 'tip' pushing iShares ('the next ipod!!!').

This was a full page advert, using the same fonts and style as the rest of the magazine. Should this be allowed? People might read this and think it is really independant advice, when it is mostly rubbish. This seems irresponsible of the magazine, and must break some guidelines, surely?

Fay

The_Boss

Oh dear! Cant imagine who the "0% for 6 months" card they are talking about could be......

It is allowed - "advertising features" or "promotional features" figure in most mags. Mens Health for example will normally have a feature about an energy drink or supplement with an interview from a top sports star plugging their product and the benefits of it.

fay144

The_Boss wrote:

It is allowed - "advertising features" or "promotional features" figure in most mags. Mens Health for example will normally have a feature about an energy drink or supplement with an interview from a top sports star plugging their product and the benefits of it.

Yeah, I've seen those sorts of articles too, but normally I've been able to spot straight away this it is a promotion. In other woman's magazines there will usually be a consistant method of marking an article as such, e.g. in the header of the page. And normally, the majority of the article will talk about the product being sold. This one only mentioned Egg once, almost in passing.

It just seemed unusually sneaky. I would have assumed there would be different rules about advertising financial products to hair removal creams. Maybe not then.

The_Boss

Are they specifically saying how great Egg is?

Joe_Bloggs

The Office of Fair Trading has guidlines and sample adverts that breach the guidlines. In my view Egg are on the limit. See:-
http://www.oft.gov.uk/Business/Legal/CCA/advertising.htm
J_B.

fay144

The_Boss wrote:

Are they specifically saying how great Egg is?

No, the only place in the actual promotion it mentioned Egg, was in one of the 5 tips given. It was general advice about not being a 'rate tart', and at the end of that paragraph it just said 'See www.egg.com'.

That was the only place I saw any reference to Egg the first time I read it. On the second reading, I noticed a small 'In association with Egg' type logo at the end of the article.