The Advertising Standards Authority has banned a pair of adverts promoting art investments.
The two Facebook adverts from Hartco Consultancy, seen in May and June, were examined by the watchdog as part of wider work on unregulated investments.
The first advert stated: “While markets swing, some investors go tangible” and “how the wealthy invest in art”.
It also included a previous return on investment for a piece of art, which the ASA considered consumers would understand as a performance indicator for investment through the company.
The second advert included the words “solid tangible hedge against inflation” and also stated targeted performance returns.
The ASA said the two ads were for an investment product but contained no information stating that art investment was unregulated.
The physical art market is not regulated in the UK or covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme or Financial Ombudsman Service and the ASA considered consumers should be informed of this.
In its ruling published today (December 3), the ASA said: “We told Hartco Consultancy to ensure that future marketing made clear that art investment was unregulated.
“We told them to make clear that the value of investments was variable and could go down as well as up, and that examples of past performance or experience were not necessarily a guide to the future.
“Examples of past performance or experience should also not be unrepresentative.”
The ruling, said since Hartco Consultancy had been notified of the investigation, the company said it had added a risk disclosure disclaimer to the landing page that linked from their ads.
They had also removed references to the phrase “hedge against inflation” in their advertising.
Since being contacted by the ASA, Hartco claimed it had acted to bring consumer facing material in line with the rules and had withdrawn the ads.
tara.o’connor@ft.com
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