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Virgin Media and BSkyb both fall foul to ASA
# 14 November 2007, 07:32 by Cable Forum
Virgin Media and BSkyb have both had their knuckles rapped again, for the second time in a week by Advertising watchdog, the Advertising Standards Authority. Virgin Media was ordered by ASA, not to repeat an ad which claims “superfast” 10Mb download service without including the term “up to”. VM responded to ASA by stating it had been an oversight that they had missed the “up to” term in some versions of an advertisement. But still claimed by providing data to ASA that 95% of its customers achieved full speed. Meanwhile…
The watchdog also insisted that it was incorrect for Virgin Media to claim that its broadband was four times faster than its competitors. ASA ruled this is misleading since one competitor had an abnormally low speed, bringing down the overall average.
BSkyb didn’t get off lightly too, over one of its advertisements. The advert stated: “You can choose from hundreds of great films to watch on your PC .. and all at no extra cost from Sky”. Further text on screen included: “No extra cost for Sky Movies 1 and 2 subscribers. Minimum system and broadband requirements.”
ASA received a complaint from a viewer who says the advertisement made no mention that a much needed requirement in order to take out the service, was that you had to be a Sky Digital subscriber, as Sky Movies is available to third party subscribers.
Sky’s response was that it did mention “from Sky” and on screen text did imply that the offer was only available to its own Satellite customers. However, ASA disagreed and overruled that the statements were “ambiguous” and that it was a significant condition needed to take the service that Sky should have made it more clear in the ad.
- News Source: ASA.