Another excellent article from CAP –
The Committee of Advertising Practice
Independence and Impartiality
05 July 2012
A fundamental cornerstone of the CAP and BCAP Codes is that marketing communications must not materially mislead or be likely to do so. An ad can mislead by ambiguity, through presentation or by omitting important information. When considering presentation, advertisers should take care to think about the likely message that consumers will take from a claim. The ASA has investigated several complaints about companies that claim to be “independent” or “impartial”. Most recently, those investigations have been in the estate agency sector, where consumers might infer that independent operators offer greater local and specialist knowledge; and the funeral services sector, where consumers might attribute an “independent” business with a greater degree of empathy or personal service at a time of grief or vulnerability.