Advertising watchdog bans eDreams ads for Ryanair and easyJet flights

Ryanair has repeated its call for Google to ban eDreams adverts promoting its flights after the Advertising Standards Authority ruled that the online travel agent  was misleading consumers.

The ASA said the online adverts breached the advertiser’s code of conduct and that the company was guilty of misleading advertising.

It told eDreams not to repeat the ads in their current form.

The ASA investigated four eDreams’ adverts seen in July last year after one complainant challenged whether they misleadingly implied to consumers that they were booking with the official websites of both Ryanair and easyJet.

The online travel agent had set up web pages with ‘easyjet’ and ‘ryanair’ in their URLs, and each page included the airlines’ official logos and pictures of their aircraft.

In its response, eDreams said the ads didn’t claim to be the official websites for easyJet or Ryanair and it did not believe it was obliged to state that the pages for those airlines on its website were not the official ones.

It said its own logo appeared at the top of each landing page and it appeared above the easyJet and Ryanair livery featured on the pages.

It said if consumers were to click on their logo, it would take them through to the eDreams’ home page, whereas that was not the case if you clicked on the easyJet or Ryanair branding on the page. They believed it was clear to consumers who searched the eDreams website for flight availability that they compared multiple airlines and not just flights available from easyJet or Ryanair.

However, the ASA said the references to easyJet and Ryanair were more prominent in the ads than eDreams and, as the airlines’ names were also used before the eDreams’ name in the URLs, customers might be misled into believing they were booking direct with easyJet or Ryanair.

In upholding the complaint, it said: "Both web pages used the logo/branding of ‘easyJet’ and ‘Ryanair’ on three occasions and used the airlines’ name six times, used colour schemes similar to that associated with the airlines, and featured the airlines’ corporate branding more prominently than the three references to eDreams.

"In this context, we considered that these less prominent references to eDreams on the page were likely to be overlooked by consumers. Consequently, we considered it would not be sufficiently clear to consumers visiting those pages that they were visiting the eDreams site.

"We considered the impression created by the web pages through the use of the corporate branding and repeated, more prominent references to "easyJet" and "Ryanair" were likely to lead consumers to think they were visiting the official sites for these airlines. Because that was not the case, we concluded the web pages were misleading."

Ryanair spokesman Kenny Jacobs said: "The ruling by the UK Advertising Standards Authority, conclusively proves that the eDreams advertising through deceptive Google adverts is misleading consumers into booking higher priced tickets through the eDreams website. eDreams continues to advertise Ryanair fares that do not exist, and continues to hit unsuspecting consumers with hidden fees, and in many cases is not booking additional services such as checked in bags.

"These deceptive practices mean that customers who think they have paid for a checked in bag arrive at the airport and end up having to pay on the double.

"Google is clearly aware of this misleading advertising, because Ryanair has brought it to its attention at every level within the organisation.

"We believe that Google has thus far failed to block this misleading advertising, precisely because it boosts Google’s advertising revenues by actively misleading consumers into believing they are booking tickets on Ryanair and/or other websites when in fact they are booking on a third party website."

Last year, Ryanair won a legal battle against eDreams in Germany, where a court ordered the online agent to stop using the subdomains Ryanair. edreams.de and ordered the company to pay Ryanair compensation for trademark infringement.

"We again call on Google to delist eDreams until all references to Ryanair have been removed from the eDreams advertising," added Jacobs.  "Ryanair has no difficulty with eDreams promoting itself as eDreams, but when it uses Google’s paid for search to pass itself off as Ryanair, then consumers are, and will continue to be misled.

"Ryanair will be using this latest ASA ruling as part of our continuing legal action against eDreams and Google to put an end to this misleading advertising, which both eDreams and Google are profiting from."