Who: The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and Hotpoint UK Appliances Ltd (Hotpoint)
Where: United Kingdom
When: 26 August 2026
Law stated as at: 16 September 2026
What happened
Hotpoint’s website displayed the claim “The UK’s Most Trusted Appliance Brand” on its homepage alongside a Trustpilot logo and a TrustScore of 4.6 with 33,375 reviews.
When consumers clicked on the Trustpilot logo, they were directed to a dedicated page which displayed the claim “Hotpoint. THE UK’S MOST TRUSTED major domestic appliance brand*”, with a disclaimer in smaller text explaining that the claim was based on Trustpilot five-star ratings among the leading major domestic appliance (MDA) brands with published Trustpilot reviews specific to the MDA sector and to the UK, as of December 2025. The click-through page also explained Hotpoint’s methodology, which involved two stages. First, the company had used 2023 data on awareness, consideration and preference to identify the main UK MDA brands. Second, it had compared the volume and share of five-star Trustpilot reviews within that group, concluding that Hotpoint ranked first on that basis.
Two complainants challenged whether the claims were misleading.
In response, Hotpoint said that the claims were developed in conjunction with Trustpilot, with Trustpilot’s authorisation and approval. It noted that Trustpilot used the volume of five-star reviews as its approved methodology for “most trusted” claims, rather than the overall star score. Hotpoint further said that it provided full transparency to consumers through detailed, accessible information on the website which was updated regularly, showed the volume of five-star reviews and how that compared to the MDA market as a whole, enabling consumers to explore and fact-check the claims for themselves.
Hotpoint also said that its data demonstrated that it held the largest share of five-star reviews among MDA brands in the UK, accounting for 22.4%, and that it would be more misleading to base “most trusted” claims on overall scores rather than on the volume of five-star reviews in relation to the MDA market as a whole, as a smaller brand with few but highly rated reviews could otherwise claim to be the “most trusted” without that being reflective of the broader market.
ASA upholds complaint
The ASA was not persuaded and it upheld the complaint. The ASA considered that consumers seeing the homepage claim alongside the Trustpilot logo and star rating would likely understand it to relate to Trustpilot reviews, but would not appreciate that it was specifically based on the volume or share of five-star reviews rather than the overall Trustpilot score. The ASA noted that, while additional explanatory information was available on the click-through page, consumers would be unaware before clicking the logo that such information existed, and the basis of the claim on the homepage was in any case not clear.
The claim was based on Hotpoint having the greatest share of five-star reviews within a defined comparator set. However, while the click-through page included a reference to the most trusted “major domestic appliance brand”, the homepage claim itself, “The UK’s Most Trusted Appliance Brand”, was broad and unqualified. The ASA considered that consumers were unlikely to appreciate that the comparison depended on a prior filtering exercise, was not a comparison with all appliance brands in the UK, or had not been verified against current data.
The ASA concluded that the basis of the comparison was not made sufficiently clear and that the claims were therefore misleading.
Why this matters
This ruling is a reminder that the substantiation for superlative claims such as “most trusted” must be transparent and not buried behind a click-through or disclosed only in small print. Even where a brand has secured platform approval for its methodology and can point to established industry practice, that might not be sufficient if consumers are left with a misleading impression on the face of the advert itself. Businesses using third-party review platforms to underpin headline marketing claims should review both the prominence and accessibility of the qualifying information, and ensure that the comparison group is clearly defined.
