Simba’s Black Friday small print, from ad to page

What the ads say

Meta’s Ad Library put Simba’s active UK ads at about 93 when we looked. It showed us 72 and we read every one. Almost all are new: 49 started on 9 November and 19 on 10 November, with 4 from 31 October. Black Friday is named in 67 of them. There are 45 videos and 27 images, and most carry only a headline and a short line of text under the picture.

The lead offer is up to 33% off. In 18 ads it applies to everything, and one headline reads “Up to 33% off everything”, followed by a footnote mark. Other ads give a single category its own number: 25% off duvets, up to 25% off pillows, 20% off selected beds, and 15% off selected toppers and the kids’ mattress. Across all of them, 25 ads call this Simba’s biggest ever Black Friday and 18 promise the best prices.

Then there are the marks. Of the 72 ads, 69 carry at least one footnote mark in their text, and there are six different marks: a double dagger, a pilcrow, a caret, a pair of stacked asterisks, a single asterisk and two daggers. Only three ads, for bundles, have none. Three ads with longer captions end by sending readers to simbasleep.com for terms, and the two image ads we enlarged carry a similar line in small type. No ad says what a mark means.

Where they send people

In the versions the library showed us, 37 ads open Simba’s homepage, 9 open a Black Friday finance page and the other 26 open a product or category page. None opens the sale terms.

Every page we opened carries the same banner: up to 33% off everything, a line of exclusions (add-ons such as underbed storage, refurbished and clearance products) and a link to the terms. The menu under it gives each category its own figure: mattresses up to 33%, pillows up to 25%, duvets 25%, beds up to 20%, toppers 15% and loungewear up to 15%.

The sale terms are a separate page of about 4,500 words. They set the sale from 1 to 30 November and compare its prices with those of 2 to 31 October. The footnote marks are explained there, in numbered clauses part-way down the page.

What works

• Discounts that match the page. The duvet ads say 25% off, and the duvets page shows 25% off each duvet. The toppers ads say 15% and the toppers page shows 15%. The kids’ mattress ads say 15%, and its page shows £339.15 against £399.
• Category ads that open their category. The ads for beds, pillows, duvets, toppers and bed linen each open the page for that category, so the number in the ad is the first one the shopper sees.
• The basis of each saving, on the product page. The mattress pages we opened say what the saving is measured against: the same product’s price on the site between 2 and 31 October.
• A price promise in plain English. If Simba sells the same product for less on its site before the end of 31 December, it refunds the difference. The page explaining it needs no footnotes.
• Exclusions on every page. The banner names what the sale leaves out, on the homepage and on every landing page we opened.

The gaps we’d close

1. Six marks, and no key in the ad. An ad’s headline has room for a claim and a mark, and none for the meaning. A shopper who wants it has to reach the site, find the terms link in the banner and read down a page of about 4,500 words.
2. Everything, defined as mattresses. The terms tie up to 33% off everything, with its double dagger, to a list of Simba’s mattresses, whose discounts run from 15% to 33%. Simba’s own finance page puts the same mark on a narrower line: up to 33% off mattresses. The menu shows beds at up to 20% and toppers at 15%, and the terms list products that join the sale only on 7 and 11 November.
3. Biggest ever, measured by product count. Of the 25 ads that say biggest ever, 16 carry the stacked asterisks and 9 carry no mark for it. The terms explain the claim: more products were discounted at once when this sale began than on any earlier Black Friday. It is a count of products, and says nothing about the size of the discounts.
4. A mark with no entry. The caret sits beside best prices in 18 ads. It appears nowhere in the sale terms, and nowhere on the price promise page or the other Simba pages we checked, 13 in all. The price promise is the likely meaning, but no page ties the mark to it.
5. A key that disagrees with itself. The terms’ key gives the pilcrow to 25% off duvets and bed linen and up to 25% off pillows. The clauses that set out how savings are worked out give 20% for duvets and bed linen, and 15% to 20% for pillows. The shop sides with the ads: the duvets page and the pillows page both show 25%. One ad marks up to £659 off a mattress with two daggers, where the terms put £659 beside a single dagger and give two daggers to a bed linen saving.

Six footnote marks across 72 ads. The caret is in 18 of them and nowhere in the terms.

Double dagger (‡), beside up to 33% off 48 of 72 ads

Pilcrow (¶), beside a category’s discount 19 of 72 ads

Stacked asterisks (⁑), beside biggest ever 16 of 72 ads

Asterisk (*), beside finance and product claims 11 of 72 ads

Two daggers (††), beside one mattress saving 1 of 72 ads

Caret (^), beside best prices 18 of 72 ads

Nowhere in the terms

What we’d do next

1. Put a short key where the ad lands. Six lines in plain English, one for each mark, at the top of the terms and linked from the banner. The long version can stay underneath.
2. Say mattresses where the terms say mattresses. Test up to 33% off mattresses against up to 33% off everything. The category ads already show that a plain number works without a second meaning.
3. Say what biggest means. More products on sale than on any Black Friday before is a clear claim. Put it in the ad, and mark it the same way every time.
4. Give the caret an entry. If it stands for the price promise, say so in the terms and on the promise page.
5. Make the key and the clauses agree. One figure for each category, and one mark for each saving.

We can’t see Simba’s results, so none of this is a verdict on performance. With account access, the first comparison we’d want is the everything ads against the category ads, whose claims need no second meaning.