Post Office ads rumpus
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POST OFFICE advertisements on television offering a substantial free test of its Royal Mail parcels service have "astonished" private sector competitors and angered users of parcels services, who claim the ads are misleading.
Potential customers are offered 50 free deliveries to test the service in the advertisement, which emphasises the strength of the PO network. They are invited to phone London agency number 01-2(10 0200 to ask for details.
No mention is made, however, of the qualifying conditions of the offer: • The company must send out at least 2,500 parcels a year; • The parcels must be sent on a single day, arranged M advance with the PO; • Destinations abroad, on offshore islands and Northern Ireland are excluded from the offer.
Existing PO customers and other parcels carriers are excluded from the offer. Shippers who did not meet the volume requirement for the offer were then asked if they would like a deal tailored to their traffic flow — but the PO seemed little interested in firms which sent fewer than 1,000 packages a year.
One small instrument maker in Birmingham, which sends six parcels a week by haulier, complained to his local press of being "hoodwinked by the advert," The Independent Broadcasting Authority, which monitors TV advertisements, said this week it has received two complaints. The advertisement was allowed because it asked potential customers to phone for details. But the IBA would review its decision if the PO wanted to run them again, it said.
"I don't know how they got it on to the TV,says Independent Express managing director Mick Egan. Independen t's advertisement on Yorkshire Television was subject to rigorous checking, he says.
TNT general manager Alan Jones, whose Supapost service for small packages and docu ents is launched next month, slammed the PO tOi• spending huge sums ot money on parcels when the Pt) Users' National Council (POUNC) is complaining about the standard of the letter service and queues at post offices.
Private sector carriers strongly suspect that the parcels business is subsidised by postal services. And they have been campaigning for several years against the PO's exemption from tachograph hours rules on parcels lorries.
A PO spokesman said on Tuesday that sonic: conditions were attached to the offer, and that was why the phone number was included. He was unable to confirm what these were, because the relevant managers were unavailable.
The advertisement was cleared by the IBA. "We have had a few letters asking us to clarify the terms of the offer," he said.