Adverts for the ultrasonic pest repeller that has been marketed and sold by Homemark for the past 14 years have been found to be both misleading and unsubstantiated.
Homemark has now been instructed by the Advertising Regulatory Board to withdraw every advert for the product — print, online and TV — that carries a claim that the product is environmentally friendly, effective and covers a large area, until such time that it is able to substantiate the claims.
The product at the centre of the controversy is a two-pin plug-in device that is claimed to send out a signal that chases away all pests within 230 square metres, and the complaint was decided on by the regulator’s directorate.
The complaint was laid by a consumer against Homemark’s advertising material relating to its Ultrasonic Pest Plug-In Insect Repellent carried on its own website and by numerous other retailers selling the Pest Magic product.
The advert states: “Say goodbye to flies, moths, ants, roaches, rats and mice with this revolutionary solution. Simply plug the Pest Magic into electrical sockets and use your home circuit to send out a signal that irritates the nervous system of pests, driving them away without causing harm.”
This image, in conjunction with the repeated wide-ranging reference to ‘pests’ in the claims raised by the complainant, might well lead the hypothetical reasonable person to conclude that the product has efficacy against mosquitoes.
— ARB
The complainant also objected to the “effective results” claim, which were that all pest problems would be resolved by the device within two- to four-weeks, with “complete elimination possible in over four weeks, depending on the type of pest and its reproductive cycle”.
Another objection was against the claim that the product was environmentally friendly as “a green and effective solution to pest problems” and that it was effective over a 230 square-metre area.
The complainant submitted that the claims were false and could not be supported by robust evidence. He referenced findings of reviews and meta-analyses done as part of the “Cochrane Reviews”, findings by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the University of McGill’s Office for Science and Society and the BBC’s Science Focus publication.
He also referred to warning notices published by the US Federal Trade Commission and Australian research findings debunking any claims of efficacy for such products. All the studies submitted concluded that there was no evidence of efficacy for driving away, or keeping away, household pests.
Based on this, the complainant argued that the advertised claims were therefore false and should be taken down.
Homemark responded to the complaint by pointing out that its Pest Magic product has been selling well for almost 14 years. In support of its claims, it submitted a report on the product’s effectiveness written by Uwe Nusser, an engineering technologist who claimed to have researched the product in 2010 and a ‘Suppression Test Report’ carried out by Supprescraft, also in 2010.
Homemark argued that the Cochrane reviews referenced by the complainant were irrelevant because they refer to products claiming to eradicate mosquitos, and no claims referencing mosquitos were made in their adverts. It also argued that the Australian study related to tick bites — also a claim that did not relate to the Pest Magic product.
Homemark said its product was effective against rats, mice and roaches. It said while some pest repellent products were more effective than others — as detailed in customer reviews — it had already made some changes to its website advertising to “avoid making unsubstantiated or potentially misleading claims”.
It claimed it had removed all references to flies, moths and ants, and only references to roaches, mice and rats had been retained, as this was supported by evidence. It said similar modifications would soon be made to its TV commercials.
In applying the code of advertising practice, the regulator considered whether the claims made were indeed misleading, and if they could be sufficiently proven, “or at the very least evaluated and ratified by an independent and credible entity who could, objectively, be regarded as an expert in the field to which the claims relate”.
The ARB accepted that Homemark had voluntarily withdrawn the claims to eradicate flies, moths and ants, and that the maintained statements relating to “roaches, rats and mice” could be supported by “electromagnetic science”.
The ARB found that while Homemark’s claims to have removed specific references to mosquitoes in its adverts, this was not the case in its TV adverts which showed an image of a mosquito.
“This image, in conjunction with the repeated wide-ranging reference to ‘pests’ in the claims raised by the complainant, might well lead the hypothetical reasonable person to conclude that the product has efficacy against mosquitoes,” said the ARB.
Referring to claims of the product’s effectiveness, the ARB noted: “The primary question remains whether the advertiser holds adequate substantiation for its claims as they currently appear. In this regard, it relied on the 2010 opinion of Uwe Nusser of USN Development, which included a test report from Supprescraft.”
It did not object to the product reports having been made in 2010 because “if the product worked in 2010, there is no reason that it should not work in 2024. None of the variables have changed”.
The ARB said that Nusser’s qualifications had not been detailed, and it had been determined from internet searches that he qualified in precision engineering in Germany, training for which included low-voltage electrical equipment. He had then immigrated to South Africa where he tested electronic equipment for OK Bazaars and Hyperama. After spending time in the marketing development division, he opened his own business as a consultant for local importers of electrical products.
“The directorate would have preferred to know the nature of his qualification — is he what would be understood as an engineer, or a mechanic? It would also have preferred to know more about his consulting business. All of this is difficult to ascertain 14 years after the fact,” the ARB stated.
It noted that while Nusser displayed a knowledgeable approach to his report, it could not be determined whether his expertise in low-voltage electronic instruments required more qualification than he displayed.
In his report Nusser confirmed that Pest Magic was an “electronic device that uses the wiring of one’s home or office to produce a force field and drives out pests”, but objected to the use of the term “force field”.
“Based on this, the claim that customers can ‘simply plug the Pest Magic into electrical sockets and use your home circuit to send out a signal that irritates the nervous system of pests, driving them away without causing harm’ was accepted as having been substantiated.”
But the added claims that the device produced complete eradication of pests within four weeks and that it provided comprehensive pest control over 230 square metres were not proven, nor was it deemed to be fairly described as an ‘environmentally friendly’ or ‘green’ solution.
Homemark was instructed to immediately withdraw all its claims that customers would “experience real progress on pest problems within two- to four-weeks depending on the type of pest and its reproductive cycle”, that it offered wide coverage up to 230 square metres and that it was ‘environmentally friendly’, ‘green’ or a ‘safe solution’.
All advertisers across all media carrying the Homemark product claims in their current form were also instructed to withdraw the adverts. The claims may only be made in future advertising material once Homemark is able to verify and prove them.
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