Simplicity Cremations' 'funeral plan' ads hid that no one attends the cremation

Dignity Funerals, Britain's largest funeral provider, ran two TV ads for its budget brand Simplicity Cremations. One promised 'one of the UK's best value funeral plans saving thousands of pounds' and showed on-screen text 'Low cost funeral plan only £1699'. A second ad sang a jingle about saving 'quite a packet' and making funeral plans 'simple'.

The plan on offer was a direct cremation only: the body is cremated with no attended service and no commemoration at the crematorium. The ads never made that clear. A complainant who understood the product challenged whether calling it a 'funeral plan' misled viewers into expecting a conventional funeral.

The ASA upheld the complaint. It accepted that a viewer could tell the plan was cheaper, but said the repeated, unqualified use of 'funeral plan', the comparison with a 'traditional funeral' and the promise of saving thousands together implied a lower-cost version of the funeral people usually expect — not a radically different cremation-only service.

Because the absence of an attended service was material information to anyone planning their own or a loved one's funeral, the watchdog said it had to be made sufficiently and prominently clear in the ad itself. The company had already agreed to add clarifying text. The ads must not appear again in the complained-of form.