Pharmacy Business

Business Magazine (Asian Trade Publications)

Published date: 31 March 2021

Complaint:
A media sheet for Pharmacy Business makes a number of claims that are inaccurate or unsupported by ABC data, including an unfair or misleading comparison with competitor titles published by Communications International Group.

Complainant: Communications International Group

Outcome:

The following complaints are upheld as infringing ABC publicity byelaws:

1. The claim ‘Pharmacy Business is almost 100% requested by individually named pharmacists’ is not supported by the ABC certificate. Whilst Pharmacy Business is virtually 100% individually requested, the Terms of Control applicable to the requested circulation on its ABC certificate are not limited to pharmacist but include a wider range of job titles/functions within the pharmacy/chemist sector.

2. The statement ‘…we guarantee to reach 10,000+ named pharmacists every month’ is not supported by the ABC certificate. As above, the Terms of Control on the ABC certificate for Pharmacy Business include a wider range of job titles/functions within the pharmacy/chemist sector.

3. The statement ‘Unlike other titles in the industry, which are predominantly sent … often by bulk…’ which appears to be directed at Communications International Group’s titles is incorrect and misleading as they do not include any ‘bulk’ distribution in their ABC circulations. The ABC certificates for The Independent Community Pharmacist, P3Pharmacy and Pharmacy Magazine all show copies claimed for the analysed Audit Issue as being reported as controlled circulation, which requires copies to be distributed to the individual – either by name (which they predominantly are) or job according to the category in which the copy is claimed.

4. The statement ‘Unlike other titles in the industry, which are predominantly sent unrequested…’ which appears to be directed at Communications International Group’s titles is incorrect and misleading. In their response Asian Trade Publications stated this claim was based on a comparison of individually requested copies, taking data from the table of individually requested copies shown below. However it’s concluded that if the claim was meant to be based upon individually requested copies it should state this explicitly. As it stands the claim is incorrect as it wrongly implies copies from the competitor titles are neither individually requested or colleague requested.

5. The percentage of copies that are individually requested are incorrectly reported. Pharmacy reported as 32% should be 3% and The Independent Community Pharmacist reported as 8% should be 9%.

6. The relevant reporting period for the titles compared has not been included as required by ABC publicity byelaws. The data quoted was the latest certified at the time, being for the period July 2019 to June 2020 for Pharmacy Business and January to December 2019 for the other three titles.

7. The incorrect claim that Communications International Group’s titles ‘are predominantly sent unrequested and often by bulk’ together with the table of data could represent an unfair or misleading comparison.

Having upheld these complaints, Asian Trade Publications are instructed to cease using this media sheet and not to repeat the claims that have been found to infringe ABC publicity byelaws. They are advised to submit any revised material to ABC for guidance and that this should reflect the latest certificates now issued for the year ending December 2020.