The Stage

Hidden Faces casting adverts found misleading by ASA

Published Thursday 17 March 2005 at 10:05 by Liz Thomas

Casting agency Hidden Faces misled the public by using adverts linking the company to shows such as EastEnders, according to a ruling by the Advertising Standards Authority.

The company had placed a number of adverts stating extras were needed for imminent filming and its directory would be sent to the BBC and in particular the primetime soap. This prompted complaints to the ASA that the advert suggested that work was available on EastEnders through its service.

Following an investigation the watchdog ruled: “The BBC only hired extras from their approved agencies list and Hidden Faces was not on that list. It considered that readers would interpret the claim, ‘Book will be sent to BBC - EastEnders’ as meaning that they had a chance of working on EastEnders. Because no extras could appear on EastEnders, the authority considered that the advertisement was misleading.”

Hidden Faces has also come under fire from Intermedia Film Equities, producer of Basic Instinct 2 and Alexander, which has drafted in lawyers to demand action over the unauthorised use of the names of both productions in its advertisements. In a letter to the casting company, legal firm SJ Berwin said such use “would inevitably confuse the public into thinking that you are in some way connected to the production” and “would amount to misrepresentation, causing damage to our client’s goodwill and reputation”.

It also ordered Hidden Faces to stop using the names unless authorised to do so and said the company should make clear it has no connection to the productions in future adverts, or potentially face legal action.

Head of casting at Hidden Faces Erik Chandler said: “We are a casting agency, we provide productions with extras and we do have a directory. EastEnders gets our book as do a number of productions but no one has ever said that it uses our extras. We hope they will at some point, as they do use different agencies over time. We are building up relationships and we do know a lot of what’s going on in the industry. We are upfront in everything we do and it even says in the adverts that there will be printing costs for appearing in the casting directory.”

He rejected the ASA’s ruling that the adverts using the names of high-profile productions was misleading, adding they were only there to provide information about where the books would go. He did concede that although the producers of Basic Instinct 2 had been sent the firm’s directory they had returned it immediately.