Another Ruling On Misleading Discount Claims In The Mattress Sector Is A Wake-up Call For Everyone – Advertising, Marketing & Branding

The Advertising Standards Authority issued a ruling today
against Otty Sleep Ltd concerning the presentation of promotional
offers on its website. The case serves as a timely reminder for
advertisers that clarity and substantiation remain the bedrock of
compliant pricing claims.

The claims

Otty Sleep sold mattresses with a headline price of
£799.99, but they offered consumers a choice of two options
when they purchased that mattress:

• Two “Free Deluxe Pure Pillows” (RRP
  £139), or




• £75 off the mattress price.

A note stated that only one offer could be applied per mattress
and that the promotion had no time limit.

The mattress page displayed a crossed-out price of
£799.99, followed by a discounted price of
£724.99 when the £75-off option was
selected.

A competitor (Simba Sleep, which had previously found itself in
the crosshairs of the CMA over its own discount claims), challenged
whether the crossed-out price represented a genuine “usual
selling price,” suggesting that the presentation could mislead
consumers.

Defence

Otty argued that the promotion had been running since March 2025
and provided sales data showing that some customers had paid
£799.99 with pillows included. They maintained that
the term “free” was used to indicate the optional nature
of the pillows, rather than implying an automatic bundle.

Otty provided spreadsheets containing sales data for the product
since the introduction of the “2 Free Pillows or
Discount” offer, but the data was uncertain. They said they
could not provide definitive figures, as their sales data did not
record whether a customer had chosen to receive additional pillows
or the discount. They said the mattress had been sold for a range
of prices due to discount codes sometimes being applied to the
final cost. Otty used the price that the customer paid for the
mattress to make a reasonable assumption about which offer they
chose. They said the data demonstrated that a number of customers
had paid the full price of £799.99 for the product, as they
had opted to receive the additional pillows.

The ASA’s decision

The ASA expected to see evidence, in the form of pricing and
sales data, that £799.99 was the established usual selling
price of the mattress alone, and that consequently the associated
£75 discount represented a genuine saving against that
price.

The ASA considered consumers would understand from the ad that
£799.99 was the usual selling price for the mattress, and
that they could either achieve a genuine saving of £75 by
receiving a discount on the mattress or opt to pay the full price
and receive two free pillows with their purchase.

The sales data Otty collected had not clearly distinguished
between consumers who received a £75 discount and those who
received additional pillows. Consequently, it was not possible to
state conclusively how many customers had purchased the mattress
alone, and the price at which they had done so. The ASA also had
not received any information from Otty demonstrating the price the
mattress was sold at before the introduction of the “2 Free
Pillows or Discount” offer. However, the ASA understood that
the offer was not time-limited and had been in place since March
2025. The mattress alone had therefore been sold at the discounted
price of £724.99 for approximately six months at the time the
ad was seen. Moreover, the ASA understood that during the offer
period it had been possible to purchase the mattress alone for less
than £724.99 because other discount codes had been made
available. The data provided had indicated that a significant
number of consumers had done so.

Although the data provided by Otty was not definitive, it
suggested that 66 of the 597 mattresses (around
11%) had been sold for £799.99 since March 2025, and that the
vast majority of customers (around 89%) had purchased the mattress
for less than the advertised reference price.

This means the sale of around 10-11% of items at the full price
is not adequate to demonstrate a genuine established price. And it
seems the ASA may be creeping towards the CMA’s
preferred/proposed benchmarks…and may be flirting with the 1:2
ratio that the CMA is pushing for in the Emma Mattress case.

Conclusion

Given the length of time that the mattress had been sold for
£724.99, and the lack of sales demonstrated at the higher
price, the ASA considered that £724.99 was effectively the
usual selling price of the product at the time the ad was seen. So,
Otty had not demonstrated to the ASA’s satisfaction that
£799.99 was the genuine usual selling price
of the mattress, and the ASA concluded that the reference price and
associated savings claims were therefore
misleading.

Because it considered that £799.99 was not the genuine
usual selling price for the mattress, we concluded that the
reference price and associated savings claims were misleading.

Key lessons for advertisers, ‘BEDevilled’ by discount
claims

• Reference prices require robust evidence: If
  you display a crossed-out price, you must demonstrate that it
  reflects a genuine, established selling price. To do so, you must
  have:
  

  • sold the item at the full price for at least as
    long as the discount is offered (duration
    limb), AND

  
  

  • sold a significant number/proportion of the
    items at the full price (volume limb).




• ASA is inching closer towards the CMA’s preferred
  approach: Although the 1:2 ratio is a new and novel
  invention by the CMA, it seems the ASA is creeping towards the
  CMA’s 1:2 ratio (i.e. when using reference prices, for every
  100 mattresses sold at the full price, you can sell 200 at the
  discounted price, but then you need to stop using the
  struck-through reference price). However, the CMA’s approach is
  being challenged in the courts, and we’ll know more about where
  the ASA and CMA stand in the summer of 2026). We are monitoring
  this closely.




• Sleepwalking into new, stricter standards?:
  This case involved the mattress sector, an area of focus for the
  CMA, and one in which they have ongoing litigation involving Emma
  Mattresses. The CMA is coy about whether it wants to apply its new,
  punchy 1:2 ratio to other sectors, and hints that it might take a
  slightly different approach in different sectors – but there is
  very little clarity about what this means in practice, and the
  concern among many is that the CMA will ultimately apply this 1:2
  ratio to most if not all sectors (perhaps making exceptions for
  perishable goods).




• “Free” must mean free: Conditional
  or optional offers should be described accurately—ASA takes a
  strict view on this term.




• Choice architecture can mislead: Presenting
  multiple offers is permissible, but clarity on the base price is
  essential, and according to the CMA’s latest guidance, extra-cost-options
  should not be pre-selected.




• Substantiation is non-negotiable: Sales data
  must clearly support the claims made. It isn’t acceptable for a
  business to claim not to gather the relevant sales data.

Final thoughts

This ruling is a gentle nudge (or perhaps a firm prod) for
advertisers to ensure their promotional strategies are transparent
and well-documented. In the world of advertising law, even the
softest pillows can create hard compliance issues—so sleep
soundly by keeping your pricing practices squeaky clean.

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