Dell warned over P4 adverts showing Celeron machine

By Alun Williams

Posted on 13 Jul 2005 at 16:28

The ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) has found Dell guilty of breaking advertising standards with a recent TV ad.

In the broadcast Dell trumpeted its commitment to the Intel Pentium 4 but also highlighted the low cost of its entry level machines, which ran on Celeron processors. A viewer complained the advert was misleading in that non-technical viewers might not be aware the lower price related to a lower performance processor.

The ad in question began 'We'll help you get your ideal PC like this dimension desktop featuring the powerful Intel Pentium 4 processor' and briefly showed a PC on screen. It then showed another PC and claimed 'Other Dell Desktops come with a flat panel monitor and start at just £349'. On-screen text beside the second PC said 'Dell Dimension 2400 with Intel Celeron Processor only £349'. And then, at the end, the voiceover claimed 'Dell PCs use Intel Pentium 4 processors'.

Dell argued that because the advertisement did not say 'All Dell PCs use Intel Pentium 4 processors', but rather 'Dell PCs use Intel Pentium 4 Processors', the implication was that some Dell PCs used the Intel Pentium 4, and therefore some did not. The on-screen text indicated that the second PC was one of the non-Pentium machines.

The ASA, however, considered the 'Dell PCs use Intel Pentium 4 processors' claim was ambiguous: 'Because it was not quantitatively qualified, it could be interpreted to mean that all Dell PCs used Intel Pentium 4. We believed that that was the misleading impression it gave.'

It also considered that the on-screen text referring to the Intel Celeron processor was not as prominent as the voiceover claims, and it decided that some viewers might not have realised that the price of the Dell Dimension 2400 was relatively low because it had a Celeron processor. In other words, there was a misleading impression that all Dell PCs used Intel Pentium 4 and that prices started as low as £349.

The ASA ruled that the advertisement breached CAP (Broadcast) TV Advertising Standards Code Rules 5.1 (Misleading advertising), 5.2.2 (Implications) and 5.4.2 (Superimposed text) and Dell was warned off showing it again in the same form.

You can read the full ruling on the ASA website.